


The Year of Starting Over

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Altered Reality, Angst, Bad Science, Discussions of Psychosis, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mind fuckery, Possible Insanity, Scientific jargon, Starting Over, Vague Discussions of Kinks, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2019-10-30 04:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 40,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17821868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: “Bucky just told you, sweetheart, we’re in med bay,” he said, clear alarm on his face as he tried to calm you. “The medical floor, at Tony’s Tower. We’re home, baby, just came down to medical to get you checked out after you fainted.”You shook your head, trying to sit up. “No!” you shouted, feeling tethered in place by the wires and sensors of heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, and medical devices you couldn’t name. “This isn’t real! None of you are real!”





	1. Chapter 1

You heard the sound of it, cracking like a whip through the busy intersection, but you didn’t feel it; suddenly you found yourself on the pavement, in the middle of the crosswalk, with the echoes of car horns and someone screaming before it all faded to nothing.

When you opened your eyes again, you felt too good for it to be a hospital bed; the mattress was huge, comfortable and warm; when you saw him sleeping beside you, you knew it had to be a dream.

You smiled. “They must’ve given me the good drugs,” you mumbled sleepily, and he snuffled in his sleep at the sound, cuddling closer to burrow his head against your chest. Figuring you may as well enjoy the drug-fueled haze, you dropped a kiss stop his head and closed your eyes, smiling again when you heard him mutter “Love you, baby”.

 

Waking again to morning light, you frowned. He was gone, the bed empty beside you, though the blankets were rumpled, and you were still in the large bed of what you thought was your hospital hallucination. You shuffled out of bed and winced, glancing down at the white t-shirt you were wearing -- too long at the hem and too wide at the shoulders to be yours -- and pair of simple blue cotton panties that were much more your style. Lifting the shirt, you found a wide gauze bandage on your abdomen; there was no bleed-through, but when you touched it gently with your fingertips it made you hiss in pain.

So that recollection had been correct: you’d been shot. You were in the crosswalk outside your work building, going towards the parking garage across the street, and you’d been shot. Clearly, it wasn’t as bad as you had feared when you were laying there, growing cold and frightened as the light seemed to be fading. You were glad you were up and mobile, but now you were terribly confused; you didn’t seem to be in hospital at all. 

You walked barefoot to the door, stepping into a living area brightly lit from the floor to ceiling windows looking out over the city. The skyline and surroundings were immediately recognizable: New York City lay spread out before you in all of its glory. That was when your knees buckled and you reached to grab arm of a nearby sofa to keep from falling to the ground. The sun in the sky looked to be at mid-morning, which meant that you’d arrived in a nice apartment in a New York skyrise after being shot in a crosswalk outside of your laboratory building… in San Diego.

“Hey, take it easy there sweetheart,” he called, and in a moment he was at your side, steadying you as you took great gulping breaths of air, trying to regain control of yourself.

It had to be a dream. It had to. But it felt so real: the sun on your face through the window, his strong arms around you, steadying you on your feet. The concern in his voice and etched on his face, even as he gave you the smallest reassuring smile.

Worse still, you recognized him. It would be hard not to -- his face had been all over the media world for the past decade. Posters, social media, internet video clips, late show appearances… he’d become iconic. By all rights you should have recognized him as the actor -- you weren’t crazy, you knew fictional characters weren’t real -- but looking at him, you could see the difference. There were stories in his eyes, the pai he had suffered, all he had been through; there was a confidence to his gait, the knowledge of strength beyond what even his new body should have offered. Clean shaven, hair a few shades lighter.

No, this was no actor. This was Steve Rogers. 

“Steve?” you asked, voice trembling, a few octaves higher than it should have been.

“What is it, sweetheart? Are you okay? Do we need to go to the med floor?” he asked, arms tightening around you as his brow furrowed in concern and he said your name. “Just tell me what you need.”

“I’m… I’m okay…” you managed to mumble, just before you fainted dead away in his arms.

 

You surfaced back to consciousness with an inward sigh of relief. You didn’t open your eyes immediately, but the sounds the scents of a hospital were all around you, from the steady beeping of a heart monitor to the lingering of antiseptic in their air. You shuffled a little in the gurney, pulling the thin blanket up a little to fend off the chill of an air conditioner.

“... wound isn’t bleeding and her vitals are stable,” a steady male voice sounded quietly nearby. “It’s most likely just some lingering stress. I wouldn’t worry.”

“How can you be sure?” another responded. “What if there’s some internal bleeding, or--”

“You heard what Dr. Cho said,” another broke in, sounding terribly familiar. “They checked her over good, ain’t nothing to worry about.”

“‘Course I’m gonna worry, Buck,” the second voice replied. “Scared the hell out of me. Thought I lost her, you know. I can’t… not again. I can’t lose anyone, especially not…”

“We know,” the steady voice broke in. “You don’t have to explain it, Steve. We’ve all seen more than enough loss, you’ve got every right to be concerned about her. But Dr. Cho is an excellent physician and I have faith in her findings. You should too.”

You groaned a little; your shoulder was stiff from the way you were laying and you needed to move. The voices around you were familiar enough that your muddle mind was curious as to their owners; you had no family to speak of and you hadn’t made any real friends since graduating so many years ago. These visitors, you thought, must belong to your roommate in whatever hospital you had landed in, even though their voices struch chords of familiarity with you. You couldn’t resist a peek.

You opened your eyes to be greeted with a gentle smile, tempered with worried blue eyes.

“Hey, there she is,” Steve spoke softly. He reached and brushed your hair back from your face, studying your expression as though looking for signs of pain. “Back with us, baby doll? You gotta stop scaring me like this. Not good for an old man like me.”

“Where am I?” you asked quietly, pretending to ignore the way your voice shook.

“You’re down in med bay,” one of the voices called, the steady Brooklyn drawl completely recognizable now that you were fully awake. Bucky Barnes was standing right behind where Steve sat at your bedside, hands in his pockets and a sympathetic smile on his face. “Should’ve seen Stevie here, carrying you in like it was your honeymoon all over again. Gave everybody a good scare, fainting like that.”

“Dr. Cho seems to think it was just a stress reaction, nothing to worry about,” the first voice added in, and you could see Bruce Banner lingering in the doorframe. “Just get some rest, take it easy for a few days. The bullet may not have hit anything major but you still need to give your body time to heal.”

Bucky snorted. “Listen to him,” he told you cheerfully, nodding towards Bruce. “Always tellin’ us, ‘guys, I’m not that kind of doctor’, then doling out medical advice left and right.” 

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “All things considered, I’d prefer it if I never had to,” he replied, earning a short chuckle from Bucky.

Steve squeezed your hand and you realized for the first time that he had been holding it all the while, one hand still stroking your hair.

“You need anything?” he asked you, nothing short of lovingly. “Maybe some water? Another blanket?” He looked so earnest and concerned; you couldn’t help but burst into tears.

“Am I crazy?” you whispered hoarsely. You had no one to ask but them -- the fictional men that surrounded your sickbed. “I’m crazy, aren’t I? Where am I? Is this a hospital?” Your voice was thick with tears and Steve had paled, gripping your hand tightly enough to almost be painful.

“Bucky just told you, sweetheart, we’re in med bay,” he said, clear alarm on his face as he tried to calm you. “The medical floor, at Tony’s Tower. We’re home, baby, just came down to medical to get you checked out after you fainted.”

You shook your head, trying to sit up. “No!” you shouted, feeling tethered in place by the wires and sensors of heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, and medical devices you couldn’t name. “This isn’t real! None of you are real!”

“Guys, get the doc, quick!” Steve called to the others, trying to calm you as Bruce and Bucky ran from the room. The monitors were going crazy as you struggled to move, beeping and chirping in a symphony of bells and alarms, and you thrashed violently in the bed, trying to escape this strange fantasy turned nightmare. 

“This isn’t real, it isn’t real!” you shouted, full-on sobbing.

Steve kept saying your name, trying to keep you stable. “Please, you’ve got to stop, you’re going to tear your stitches…!”

You didn’t even notice as Bruce rushed back into the room, and never felt the needle prick in your arm from the sedative he had brought in with him. It took effect almost immediately and you sagged in Steve’s arms, head lolling back as the world became dim and hazy.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking again, you found yourself in the same hospital bed, room barely lit with a lamp over your bed. There were restraints tied to the guardrails but they weren’t in place on your limbs, and you thought for a moment that the madness was over -- that perhaps you’d had a bad reaction to anesthesia or a painkiller and dreams the whole wild affair. Things could be normal now, maybe.

And then you saw him sitting there.

Steve looked terrible. You knew you must have been out of sorts for at least a day or two; if the stiffness in your limbs was anything to go by, the restraints must have only just come off within the past few hours. The time hadn’t been good to Steve; he was unshaven and his hair was dirty, dark circles under his eyes, and he was wearing the same clothes as he had been in when you first woke into this madness.

Seeing you stir, he cleared his throat. “Can you tell me your name?” he asked in a low, tired voice.

You answered quietly and he nodded with a rueful smile. “Right,” he agreed. “But you’ve been hyphenating for three years now.”

“Hyphenating with what?” you asked, though you were pretty sure you knew the answer.

“Rogers,” he said, and you leaned back against your pillow without responding.

Steve reached for a cup of coffee on the standard issue hospital table that had been pulled out from the bed; you could see in the light it was half-full, and if you had guessed, you would have said it was probably cold. He drank the rest of it in one go and grimaced before setting it back down.

“Do you know what year it is?” he asked.

You sighed and told him the year then added, “Early Spring, last time I checked. But I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”

“About four days,” Steve told you. “You’ve been in and out. This is the calmest you’ve been in days so Dr. Cho decided to let it ride, see if you’d be lucid enough to chat. Do you know where you are?”

“Looked like New York outside the window, but that doesn’t make sense,” you told him, and shook your head. “None of this makes sense.”

“What would make sense?” he asked, leaning forward and clasping his hands. “Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“I shouldn’t be in New York,” you said, shaking your head. “I should be in San Diego. And you… you’re not real. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t be real.”

He frowned; clearly, this was something you’d said a lot in the past few days of delirium. “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

You shook your head as best you could, flat against your pillow. “Steve Rogers isn’t real,” you said, reaching to scrub at your eyes with balled fists. “Steve Rogers is a fictional character, from a comic book and a movie. You’re not even… you look like the actor that plays you… plays _him_ , but it can’t… it doesn’t make sense!”

Steve closed his eyes; the stray tears that slipped from his lashes didn’t escape your attention. “Okay,” he said after a long moment. He opened his eyes again and nodded. “Okay. If I’m not real, then what about you? Are you real?”

“I’m a real person,” you told him, nodding. “The rest of you… even this _place_ , they aren’t real.”

“From a movie?” Steve offered carefully. “We’re all from a movie that you saw?”

You snorted. “Jesus, that _everyone_ saw. Like, a dozen movies. They call it a ‘cinematic universe’, a bunch of interconnected stories from comic books that… look, I’m not crazy… well I guess I have to be if I’m talking to a god damn fictional character, but not about this.”

“Tell me about you, then, if you’re the only real person here,” Steve offered, leaning back in his chair. “Who are you? What happened to you?”

You repeated your name, and Steve nodded. “I’m a researcher at the Bydder Lab in San Diego. I’ve worked there for three years.”

“So you’re from California?” Steve asked you, and you shook your head.

“I’m from New York,” you corrected, frowning at him. “I graduated from NYU and worked at the Genome Center out of school before I took the job in California.”

“Why did you leave the city, then?” Steve pressed.

You snorted again. “Why bother staying?” you replied, an edge of bitterness to your voice. “My fiance took off with my best friend. I didn’t have anyone or anything else keeping me here. I needed a fresh start, so I bailed when the opportunity came up.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed in a non-committal tone. “And after that? What happened to you, do you think, that you ended up here?”

“Somebody shot me!” you replied, almost defensively, sitting up in bed again. “I was just walking to my damn car and someone fucking shot me! I don’t know why! I’m not a bad person, I never hurt _anybody_ , but there’s always some crazy guy with a gun on the news…” 

“And you went to the hospital? Was there an ambulance, or…” he pushed.

“No! I don’t know!” you snapped, throwing your hands in the air. You collapsed back against the bed and shook your head. “I was dying,” you said after a beat, voice tired but calm. “I think I was dying. I was so cold, and… and then I woke up, here. But this can’t be real, it can’t.”

Steve nodded, watching you quietly for a long moment before speaking again. “I know this is what you believe is true. But can I tell you about what _I_ know is true?”

You sighed. “May as well,” you told him.

He nodded again and picked up the coffee cup, eyes cast to his hands as he played with the waxy paper cup; it seemed as though he couldn’t even look you in the eye anymore.

He told you your name again and you gave a hollow chuckle; that much, it seemed, you could agree on.

“It is early Spring,” he continued slowly. “And you did graduate from NYU and work at Genome for a few years. But then you came to work in the labs here, at Stark Tower. You have lots of friends and people who love you here. Your best friend is Darcy Lewis, a lab assistant who moves between New York and a few other research facilities around the world.

“Seven years ago, I came down to the research floors in the Tower when Bucky… my best friend, who you’ve always said is one of your favorite people… when he needed some work done on his prosthetic. The lab made him nervous so I went with and that’s...that’s the day I first met you.”

Steve swallowed hard and even in the scant lighting of the room, you could see there were tears in his eyes threatening to spill over again.

“Three years ago, we got married,” he told you, and his voice seemed to shake a little on the words. “It was… it was the happiest I’ve ever been, I think, that day. And it’s only gotten better. A few days ago, I got back from a long mission that had gone pretty well. It was a beautiful day so once I got cleaned up, we decided to walk to a cafe down the street to celebrate and… and…”

He closed his eyes again, and you thought for a moment that if any of this was real, it would seem he was reliving that moment as he spoke.

“The gunman was from a Hydra splinter cell. We thought they were aiming for me and it was a bad shot, but based on the way you’ve reacted…” he went on, then sighed. “You were hit in the abdomen. It ruptured your spleen. You would have bled out but I picked you up and brought you home as fast as I could. They did emergency surgery, said that you’d heal up quickly because a person can live without a spleen and it was a clean shot. Now they’re thinking that the bullet was laced with something that’s caused… that’s caused a psychotic break.”

You nodded tiredly. “That much we can agree on,” you said, a few stray tears slipping down your cheeks. “I’ve definitely had a psychotic break, since I’m chatting with a fictional superhero and all.”

You turned away from him and onto your side, pulling the blanket up a little higher. “I’m going to go back to sleep now. Maybe I’ll be less crazy in the morning.”

“Can I stay with you?” Steve asked. You resisted the sudden urge to turn around and beckon him to you, to hold him close and try to soothe the pain so clear in his voice. 

“May as well,” you agreed, and closed your eyes. You forced yourself not to turn to him, listening to the muted sounds of his own stifled tears until you drifted into fitful slumber.


	3. Chapter 3

You slept a lot in the following days. You kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, if you could fall asleep and open your eyes to a new day, the craziness of the whole situation would have left you and you’d wake back to the reality you knew. Steve was almost always there, stalwart at your side, expression growing more and more grim as each day you refused to acknowledge what he told you, that the world around you was real and this was actually your life.

The others came and went. Bucky would come down and try to chat, clearly becoming disturbed as you helplessly gazed at his prosthetic arm as though it were something new and novel you’d never seen before. As far as he was concerned, it should have been old hat to you by now, but you knew better. Watching the way it moved was startling in its own right; your minor had been in engineering when you were in college, and you could recognize the small machinations visible in the shifting plates. It was scientifically sound, so far as you could tell. That was the scary part, really -- that your clearly addled mind could create something so realistic that even the science added up.

Bruce was taking a clinical route, trying not to push you into another ‘episode’, as he had referred to your initial panicked outburst, but still seemingly pushing very subtly to search the extent of your presumed madness. He asked you about your work at Bydder -- apparently you were working on a very similar project there in the labs at the Tower -- and your family and friends. He took your history, the life you had tried to explain to Steve, only gently prodding to point out where your real life and this imaginary would you found yourself intersected. 

Dr. Cho was very polite but also curt; she gave you the bare minimum of necessary information, sticking mainly to your physical health as she saw it and just ghosting on your mental state from time to time.

“We seem to be well past the hysteria stage,” she said lightly, using a small penlight to check the reaction of your pupils before jotting down a quick note on the clipboard she carried. “I think we can remove the restraints from the room at this point. Pending another toxicology screen, you’ll most likely be released home this afternoon. Captain Rogers has already been made aware.”

You glared at the doctor, her words making you prickle. It was so matter-of-fact and concise; it was irritating.

“Why’d you tell him?” you snapped. “Don’t you people have HIPAA here in superhero-world?”

“Captain Rogers is privy to your medical information as next-of-kin,” Dr. Cho reminded in a matter-of-fact tone. “He is your husband, after all.”

“Yeah? Well maybe he shouldn’t be!” you responded angrily. You didn’t know Steve -- he was a character from a movie and you didn’t _know_ him. That they would share your personal information with someone you didn’t share a real bond with -- fictional or not -- was galling. “Who do I talk to about getting a goddamn divorce?”

The crash from the door startled you.

You hadn’t realized he had been approached the room, lingering in the doorway out of respect for your privacy to allow Dr. Cho to finish her exam without interrupting. He had just been stepping inside, a glass vase full of sprays of baby’s breath mingled with your favorite blooms in his hand, when you had spoken, and the vase dropped out of his hand to shatter on the floor.

He stared at you a long moment, wide-eyed and pale, before he seemed to physically startle and jumped back a few steps.

“Sorry, I… I’ll… just get something for the mess,” Steve said quickly, and bolted back out the door.

Dr. Cho frowned at you for a moment before forcing her face back into a neutral expression, clear disapproval shining in her eyes at your outburst. You only glared back until she left.

Steve arrived back a good twenty or so minutes later and you pretended to be asleep, refusing to open your eyes as you heard him shuffling around the doorway, cleaning up the mess of flowers, water, and shattered glass. He came to your beside afterwards and waited a few minutes before heaving a sad sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice quiet and pained. “I won’t bother you anymore.” You listened to him leave and curled in on yourself once he was gone, crying with a heartbreak you didn’t understand until you exhausted yourself. 

 

When you woke again, Tony Stark was sitting in a chair near the foot of your bed, watching you with his arms crossed over his chest. He and the others had been away, Steve had explained a day or two before, assisting with some sort of peace deal in Geneva. You hadn’t asked about them, but Steve seemed to think your relationship with them important enough to offer the information. ‘Tony, Natasha, and Clint’, he had called them, as if your being on a first name basis with even more of the Avengers team was simply par for the course.

You had wished he could understand how crazy it all was, but of course there was no way to show him. It wasn’t exactly like you could reason with fictional characters.

“So what’s my actor like?” Tony said, spotting your eyes flicking open. It was night again and the room was dim, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Someone Clooney-esque?”

You snorted, reaching for a glass of water on your bedside tray. “He’s a Brat-Packer,” you replied, after downing half the glass in one go.

The face Tony made was all but horrified. “God. Not another Sheen kid, is it?” he asked, and you had to stifle a laugh.

“Nah,” you told him, shaking your head. “Solid actor. Got into some trouble, but cleaned himself up. Some decent rom-coms in the 90’s and a quirky detective flick with Val Kilmer that I bought on blu-ray. Honestly, I’m a fan.”

He quirked half a smile at you, but it was clear it was a little sympathetic. “So you really are this far gone, huh kid?” he said, shaking his head. “I was hoping Cap had gone a little dramatic on me and was exaggerating. You’re completely around the bend, aren’t you?”

“Hey!” you said, somewhat offended. “Talking delusions don’t get to comment on my sanity. Or lack thereof.”

Tony sighed and stood, arms crossed over his chest. He looked just as you would have imagined, had you needed to call an image of the character to mind: impeccable suit, neatly trimmed facial hair… All that was missing was drink in his hand.

He leaned against the windowsill. “Look around, kid. See that skyline? The only thing with a tenuous grasp of reality around here is you.” To punctuate his words, he uncrossed his arms and knocked on the wall. “See? Solid.”

You shrugged. “I’m not an expert on psychosis but I read that it can seem very realistic.”

“Oh really?” Tony said, challenge in his voice. He walked over to your hospital bed and pinched you hard on the shoulder. “How’s that, then?”

You yelped and flinched away. “Ow! That hurt, you ass!”

“Exactly!” Tony told you triumphantly.

Still rubbing your arm, you rolled your eyes. “It doesn’t mean anything. People get hurt in their dreams all the time, it’s still all an illusion.”

“People do get hurt in their dreams,” Tony agreed, nodding. “But they don’t feel the pain, do they kid?”

You opened your mouth to protest and then froze, frowning. That was something you hadn’t really considered. You’d had nightmares before, chased down by monsters or in cars running off bridges and the like, but you couldn’t remember an instance where you felt the actual pain of it. Fear, yes; lots and lots of fear. But never the pain.

“See?” Tony pressed. “Look, I’m no shrink, but I gotta think the first step to fixing whatever wires got crossed in your brain is admitting that you’re standing on solid ground here. This is the world, kid. It’s time to start accepting that as a fact.”


	4. Chapter 4

You had them stumped, it would seem, and it was a little difficult not to be a bit proud of that fact. Dr. Cho had released you from medical care with a clean bill of health, minus the still-tender gunshot wound and surgical repairs, but even then were healing with great rapidity. It was the cavalcade of mental health professionals that they paraded you past -- each one locked down tight into a non-disclosure agreement strict and strongly worded enough to put the fear of god into them, lest some news of Mrs. Rogers’ misfortunate ‘leak to the media’ -- that couldn’t seem to fathom what was happening.

Some claimed it to be a schizotypal personality disorder, but every part of your life leading up to this apparent collapse of mental faculties seemed to prove otherwise.

Others pointed towards late-onset schizophrenia, all but unheard of in a woman of your age.

There were a few who claimed it a reversal of imposter syndrome -- rare but not unheard of.

At least one proclaimed that you were faking it entirely, and it was all a ploy to garner attention from your friends and family. You hadn’t been in the room for that one, but from what you heard the others speaking about in low tones, you were fairly certain that Steve had broken the man’s jaw. Thankfully, the NDA covered such an instance as well.

The bare minimum diagnosis that most of them agreed on was that it was definitely a type of delusional order and they were at a loss at how to treat it if you continued to refuse to recognize that you had a problem and would not take the psychotropic drugs they prescribed.

But you could work. You could _function_. 

 

When you were released from the med bay, Tony had already prepared for you a small apartment a few floors up from the labs where you worked. You couldn’t go back to the home that you shared with Steve -- you couldn’t be around him, couldn’t see what this was doing to him. The last thing you’d ever have wanted was to hurt anyone and it was clear that your inability to acknowledge the life he insisted you two had shared was eating away at him.

You just couldn’t give in. If you accepted it -- believed in this wonderful life they all kept telling you that you had, embraced the illusion -- it would crush you when you finally woke up to reality, a world where you had no friends or family to speak of and lived a lonely life of working all day only to return home to a quiet apartment, eat a frozen low-calorie meal, and watch an hour of mindless television before going to bed. This way, you could insulate yourself -- protect yourself from that future pain.

It wasn’t working.

You liked the people you were working with, the lab assistants that you had apparently hand-picked. They hadn’t been told the extent of your apparent problem, only that you had some personal memory loss but were able to continue your research.

Bruce had explained it to them; you’d eavesdropped from outside the door before you ventured in on your first day ‘back’ to work.

“She’s perfectly healthy and more than capable to continue the work you’ve been doing here,” Bruce had said in his steady, comforting tone. “But she may have to ask your name a few times. Please don’t be offended by it.”

“Is there anything we should not… not bring up?” a meek feminine voice asked in response.

“I would stay away from anything involving personal lives,” Bruce advised. “I know Doc has always been social with everyone, and you’ve all discussed your families together, right now she and Steve need some privacy.”

Apparently, that was what they called you -- what almost everyone at the Tower had called you, before this mess had begun. Doc. You tried not to let yourself like it; it had been years since anyone had given you a nickname.

“Is it true Doc’s moved out of the Tower?” someone else asked.

“Who told you that?” Bruce asked, voice suddenly sharp.

The questioner must have been visibly cowed, because he paused a beat before responding. “No-no one specifically, Dr. Banner,” he said. “It’s just… there’s been a few rumors, in the cafeteria… someone said she moved out, someone said they had her in lockdown or…”

Bruce sighed. “I don’t want anyone speculating on her personal life, got it? Just be kind, follow direction, get to work. Pretend like nothing’s changed and things’ll go back to normal, in time.”

You’d cleared your throat before entering, allowing the little audience to disperse, and got to work. Your research was a bit behind where you had been at Bydder, but that made sense; you had no social life, after all, no family, no husband; of course all of your free time had gone to thinking about the projects you were working on. Convenient for your delusion too, to not have to substitute in some junk science to pretend as though you’d gotten further along in the experiments. Further proof, you thought, that this was all some dream that was just going to slip away soon enough.

It was a quiet life, but it was good. Your lab assistants were friendly and chatty, so different from the quiet, sterile atmosphere you were accustomed to; you spend much of the day talking and laughing as you worked, and took the elevator to your little apartment with a smile on your face, more often than not. It was well over two months before you realized that Steve, who you hadn’t seen hide or hair of in some time, was not dealing with the situation as well as you were.

 

You walked to the elevator with Beth quite a bit, one of the newer hires in the lab who had come on just before your ‘accident’, as they liked to put it. She had been waitressing during the Battle of New York and had her life saved by the Avengers -- particularly the great Captain America; it had inspired her to change her life and find a way to do some good. She enrolled in college classes and when she graduated with lab certification, had immediately applied to work with you. You had, apparently, approved her application yourself.

“Are you going to see the movie tonight?” she asked, chatting amiably. One of the many secrets of Stark Tower was the auditorium size screening room nestled quietly on the 72nd floor; it was one of the perks of being employed with Tony’s company. About once or so a month, he’d offer a free screening of a recent film to all staff and their loved ones, popcorn and all. There was another, much smaller screening room up on the residential floors that was reserved for movie nights between the team and their significant others, but the staff -- from doormen to executives -- were all very pleased with what was offered to them. It was in no small part due to the fact that much of the team showed up to join the fun, of course.

You hadn’t attended a screening since your ‘accident’.

“No, I think I’m just going to stay home,” you told her with a smile and a shrug. “Apparently there’s a few Stephen King novels I don’t remember -- thought I’d catch up.”

Beth chuckled and nudged you with her elbow. “Some perks to amnesia after all?” she teased, and you couldn’t help but laugh.

Then you heard it: the heavy thud of footsteps down the hall, one a disordered, lurching gait and the other far more smooth, and then his voice.

“Jus’ wann’ see’er Buck, thas’all,” Steve was slurring.

“C’mon pally, this is a bad idea,” Bucky replied. “Let’s go up to your place, get you a glass of water or somethin’...”

Glancing towards the sound and back to Beth, you nodded towards the elevator, which had just opened.

“Why don’t you go on? I can wait for the next one,” you said quickly and Beth nodded. She shot you a sympathetic look before stepping inside and pressing her intended floor, the doors quickly sliding shut in front of her.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve stumbled around the corner just a moment later and stopped short at seeing you, stumbling just a pace or two before balancing himself against the wall. He didn’t speak, just looked at you with eyes wide in surprise; it might have been that he never expected to really find you, after all.

He didn’t look well -- even outside of being dead drunk, which was startling in its own right. You’d never seen him this drunk, you thought, quickly chastising yourself for such a silly thought; of _course_ you hadn’t seen him drunk at _all_ , they’d never shown that in any of the movies, but then…

The images came to you in a rush: Steve, cheeks pleasantly pinked, holding you close in a traipsing step on the dance floor of a ballroom decked out in gold and black. New Year’s Eve, you realized, with a full orchestra playing as glittery confetti fell from the ceiling and Steve, tipsy and sweet, leaning down to kiss you and whisper what a wonderful year it had been, and how many more you’d have, all of them even better than the last. You could almost taste the burn of the Asgardian mead from his kiss and in the here and now, you raised a hand to your lips absently as you stared at him.

Steve, holding you up as you stumbled into your apartment, the one you’d had in Chelsea before he’d asked you to move in. You’d been out _bowling_ of all things and Thor had arrived with a small flask, getting Steve and Bucky just lit enough that the rest of you might have a chance to beat them in the game. You hadn’t, of course -- Darcy had kept arriving back from the little lane bar with some cheap liquor or other in her hands and far be it for you to refuse -- and you’d all been giggly as you piled into a cabs, Jane and Thor in one and the rest of you stuffed into another, first stopping at the Tower, where Darcy pulled Bucky out after her, before heading to your place.

You’d been wearing a dress, a babydoll printed with tiny little flowers. Steve had torn the back zipper taking it off you with mead-clumsy hands, and you’d laughed about it in the morning.

The two of you on a beach somewhere, a private island he’d arranged for a honeymoon. You’d had a pair of some sort of fruity drinks and Steve had winked at you before spiking his own with the tiniest flask you’d ever seen, a wedding gift from Jane.

“It’s only fair, right?” he teased, then kissed you, licking the taste of rum out of your mouth.

 

You hadn’t even realized you’d started crying, slow tears falling down your cheeks, your eyes widened in shocked memory. Steve’s own drunken expression broke at the sight.

“M’sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “M’sorry, baby, didn… didn’t wanna upset you…”

Bucky was there, holding Steve up to a good degree, and… glaring at you. You understood it; Bucky was the protective big brother that Steve had never had, and much as you had loved Bucky as if he were your own family, you were hurting Steve. Even if you had never meant to do it.

You put on the brightest smile you could manage, even as the tears kept falling. “Hey, it’s fine,” you said, unable to stop yourself from walking towards him. “I’m fine, see? You didn’t upset me.”

Steve shook his head and reached out to wipe a tear from your cheek with his thumb. “Yr’cryin’, Doc,” he said, voice full of sorrow. “Didn’wanna make you cry.”

You shook your head. “It’s okay,” you reassured him. “I’m just happy to see you, is all. I’ve been keeping to myself more than I should, haven’t I?”

Your words seemed to break something in him and Steve choked on a sob before throwing his arms around you, the weight of him making you stumble; you might have fallen if Bucky hadn’t been there, to keep you both on your feet.

“Miss you,” he said, shoulders shaking. “Miss you so goddamn much.”

“C’mon,” you told him, sliding an arm around his midsection. “Let’s get you up to bed, okay?”

 

Bucky had to support Steve’s weight for much of the stumbling elevator ride and walk to the apartment, but you kept close all the same. The mere proximity seemed to help, with Steve more relaxed just by having you near and not fighting Bucky’s attempts at keeping him upright. 

The closeness was almost too much for you; the familiarity of it, the weight of him at your side, the scent of his cologne… it was a sense-memory overload. You couldn’t conjure any specific memories but you knew the scent -- as familiar to you as Christmas cookies in the oven or the aroma of a summer rain.

It only worsened when you made it to the apartment; you knew where to reach for the light switch, where to sidestep a low-lying coffee table, and where to steer Steve to get him into bed. You’d only spent a few waking moments there since you’d first opened your eyes to this completely insane reality, fainting within minutes, but you still knew the place like the back of your own hand. You tried not to think too hard on it, easing open the bedroom door and slipping inside ahead of Steve, with Bucky just behind. 

As you neared the bed, Bucky let go of his grip on Steve and the two of you stumbled forward, landing together on the mattress. Steve immediately relaxed, winding his arms around your waist and pressing his face into the side of your neck.

“S’all I needed,” Steve mumbled, nuzzling as close as he could. “Needed m’girl t’come home, s’all.”

The calm, relaxed tone of his voice, drunken as it was, broke your heart. You had already been looking for an opportunity to slip out, to pull yourself from Steve’s arms and escape to your quiet little apartment. It might have been a little lonely, but it was safer there. As long as you isolated yourself, you couldn’t give in.

But it was so _hard_.

Bucky had apparently disappeared and close the bedroom door behind him, leaving you in the dim light of dusk, huddled on the bed with Steve in your arms. You listened to his breathing slow, knowing he was falling into a drunken slumber, and began absently running your fingers through his hair. Steve made a pleased noise and you could swear you felt his lips press ever so gently to your chest, his body curling a little bit tighter around yours.

You took the opportunity to look around the room, taking in your surroundings with a keener eye than you had been able to upon first waking in confusion. The bedclothes were grey, a relatively thin blanket over linen sheets of a slightly lighter shade; the frame was solid wood, stained dark, with matching bedside tables on either side. There was a photo in a silver frame on Steve’s side, and it struck you as out of place before you recognized what it was: a wedding photo. The two of you, in a candid shot that Bucky had taken while you were dancing; not the first dance, the one that stood on great ceremony, but a later one -- when you were both a little tired and a little slap-happy, his tie undone and your veil gone cockeyed in your hair. You were grinning at each other.

That pang of recognition was there again. You know that photo, that frame; it usually sat on a side table in the living room. It seemed that Steve had moved it into the bedroom sometime after you had left.


	6. Chapter 6

It was some time before you were certain that Steve was asleep. Much as you wanted to stay -- and you did want to stay, more than anything, much as it pained you to admit it to yourself -- you knew that you couldn’t. You carefully slipped out of his arms, pausing to press a soft kiss to his forehead, breaking your own heart a little to see the way he smiled in his sleep.

You tiptoed out of the bedroom, your shoes in your hand, closing the door behind you as gently as you could. When you turned and saw Bucky frowning at you from the sofa, you sighed.

“Waited all this time?” you asked, voice sounding as tired as you were feeling.

“Figured you’d pull something like this,” he told you sourly. He swallowed the remnants of what looked to be a glass of whiskey -- Steve kept it on hand, enjoying the familiarity of the taste even as it did nothing for him, and it hurt that you knew that -- then stood, leaving the empty glass on the coffee table. “Thought I’d stick around to see how long it’d take. Not good with breakin’ his heart the old-fashioned way, gotta make sure it hurts, huh?”

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, trying to center yourself before replying. “I don’t need this right now, Bucky,” you snapped. You walked a few steps towards him before stopping, balancing yourself on a bookshelf to put on your shoes.

“Well it’s about time somebody said somethin’,” Bucky replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why are you doing this to him? To yourself?”

Irritated, you glared at him. “Are you new here?” you snapped. “I’ve already told you, all of you. I’m not--”

“Look, I don’t care what you believe or don’t believe at this point,” Bucky interrupted. “The fact of the matter is, it’s been almost four months since the day you woke up and decided you were stuck in some kinda bad dream. None of us seem to be going anywhere so it’s time you resigned yourself to the fact that the problem is with you, not with the rest of us.”

“Oh, it’s that easy?” you asked, straightening once you had your shoes on. “Just pretend like I’m somebody else, that the real me that I know all about doesn’t exist? Put on somebody else’s life and pretend like I have any idea what’s going--”

“Don’t feed me that bullshit, you’re remembering,” Bucky said, and you stopped short. You stared at him with wide eyes, unsure how to respond.

“You think I don’t know what that looks like?” he went on. “Like I haven’t seen the same expression in the mirror, a thousand times over? You remember. Maybe not everything, not yet, but it’s there. It’s coming back.”

You shook your head, tears in your eyes. “Bits and pieces,” you responded, voice suddenly rough and thick with emotion. “Not a lot, nothing even… nothing even linear, really, just… bits and pieces.”

Bucky sighed, expression going soft and sympathetic. He had been there himself, after all; of course he would understand.

“Then why are you fighting it so hard?” he asked. You had barely noticed that he had stepped towards, near enough now that he reached out and put a hand on your shoulder. You closed your eyes at the touch, a few stray tears breaking free to slide down your cheeks.

“You don’t understand,” you told him, shaking your head. “Bucky, I was… she… if I let myself want this life, if I let myself have it? Then wake up one day and I’m back to that other life, the one that I remember best, that feels real… Bucky, it’ll break me.”

You sniffled and wiped at your tears before continuing. “I have nothing. And no one. I could wake up at any second, all alone in some hospital room and remember this wonderful life here, full of people that I love and Bucky, Bucky I won’t be able to stand it. I won’t.”

Bucky let out a long breath and shook his head. “Jesus, Doc,” he breathed, and pulled you into a tight embrace. For the first time since arriving in this strange new universe, you let yourself relax and really _feel_. You wept in Bucky’s arms, for the life you remembered and the life that you were just beginning to recall, for Steve and all this had done to him, and for the person you were -- or had been -- so sad and alone.

Bucky simply held you and let you get it all out, occasionally rubbing a soothing circle on your back to help try and calm you. When you were able to stop, you stepped back out of his arms, embarrassed by the whole display.

 

“This won’t be good for him,” Bucky warned you quietly. “He went to sleep with you there. When he wakes up and you’re gone… it’s not going to be easy.”

“I can’t,” you told him, shaking your head. “Bucky… I just can’t.”

“So you’re going to keep isolatin’ yourself?” Bucky asked with a sigh. He understood the predicament you were in, but didn’t agree with your decision to play it safe. “Then your life here is no better than your life back… wherever… is it?”

“What else can I do?” you replied. “I have to… I have to protect myself, Bucky. You should understand that, at least. I have no idea what’s happened here, if this is a massive hallucination, or some kind of personal hell, or… or…”

“Hell?” Bucky echoed, brows arched in surprise. “C’mon, we’re not all bad,” he teased.

You gave a small smile. “You’re not,” you agreed. “But keeping myself from being a part of this life… keeping myself from Steve… that’s hell, Bucky.”

“So what if you’re wrong?” he countered. “What if it’s something else? A third option. I mean… look around, doll. Me an’ Steve, bein’ alive and kickin’... Banner and his bad side… the world is a pretty weird place. Weird shit happens, a lot of it we’re still trying to figure out. You could work on that.”

You frowned. “Work on what?” you asked.

“Figuring out what the hell is happening here,” Bucky pointed out. “C’mon Doc, you’re a genius. We got a couple more kickin’ around this joint. Bet if all of you put your heads together, you could get this all worked out in no time.”

Your eyes went very wide. “Oh my god, Bucky, you’re a genius!” you said, throwing your arms around him.

How is it that you had never thought of it before? You’d been putting in your time in the labs, continuing your work on the physics of man-made magnetic wormholes, and you hadn’t thought to test yourself -- to try and find out what was happening to you, and what had caused it. You had the world’s best research facilities at your disposal and you’d been simply going through the motions.

Bucky chuckled. “Far from it, doll. I think you got the widest share of the brains in this room.”

“I’ll figure this out!” you said excitedly, heading for the door. “I’ll figure it out and once I know, Bucky, once I’m sure… once I’m sure I’ll make it up to Steve, I swear it!”

~*~

Steve woke the next morning to a blinding headache and a cold, empty bed. He could still smell you on the pillow, the mixture of shampoo and soap and just _you_ that had long been his favorite thing in the world. He pressed his face into the soft cotton of the pillowcase and closed his eyes again, blotting out the rest of the world as best as he could. 


	7. Chapter 7

It had been raining. You had been a little disappointed, at first, but th day proved so wonderful in spite of the downpour that you’d never frowned at a little storm since.

It started when Steve had accompanied Bucky to the labs for some work on his prosthetic; Shuri had sent Tony the specs for a few new ideas and improvements and he had fabricated the parts, but often ducked out of working in close quarters with Bucky. He had decided you had a delicate enough touch to do the job, and you were always pleased to help.

You’d tried making small talk but Bucky just seemed uncomfortable. His best friend, however, had been more than willing to chat; it seemed to put Bucky at ease, just to hear the easy conversation between you and Steve, and you had to hide your disappointment when the work was finished.

Steve had smiled at you, head cocked to the side and hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans.

“Do you have a break coming up anytime soon?” he asked, voice dropped just enough that your team of technicians couldn’t eavesdrop. “I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee.”

If you’d had more time that day, you suppose you might have found a quiet cafe somewhere, but with your workload and the convenience of the public cafeteria, it was simplest to sneak away that afternoon and tuck yourselves into a small table in the corner.

And again the next day. And the next. And the next.

It became a routine, everyday at one o’clock, if you were working and Steve was home in the Tower, you had a standing date. Then there were long lunches and nights you stayed late, invited upstairs to the private screening room for movie nights with the rest of his team or little impromptu gatherings. You never named it -- nothing concrete, no titles, no promises of exclusivity.

But you knew. And you were certain he did, too.

Then one day at coffee, a strange look passed over his face. “Doc…” he asked, frowning. “Have we… we’ve never gone out, have we?”

You blinked, surprised. “I’m not sure what you mean?” you said, uncertain as to what he was getting at. 

Steve laughed, reaching out to take your hands in his own across the table. “What I mean is I’m an idiot, and I’ve never taken taken my best girl out on the town. We have to fix that.”

It was summer and he had an itch to be out of doors; there wasn’t too much in the way of real green space in the city, outside of a myriad of crowded city parks, but Governor’s Island offered a welcome respite from skyscrapers and traffic, and was usually a bit less crowded than the metro parks. The idea of sitting beside Steve and watching the sunset on Outlook Hill was more than a little appealing, so you’d arrived at the building you’d come to think of as more than simply ‘work’ early in the afternoon on a summery Saturday, ready for an adventure.

Of course, as soon as you you reached Steve’s door on the residential floors of the Tower, a crack of thunder sounded strong enough that you could swear you felt the building shake. Your face fell just as Steve opened the door.

“Was it supposed to rain?” you asked, frowning.

Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I guess it was,” he said. “I’m so sorry, I should have checked the weather, I just got so excited with the whole idea of it…”

“It’s not your fault,” you said, standing on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek in greeting before stepping inside. “I didn’t think to check either. Same reason, too.”

You hadn’t spent _too_ much time in his apartment and you took a moment to look around, admiring the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows in spite of the rain, and the simple but elegant design of the place. You vaguely recalled him mentioning once that Pepper Potts, Tony’s fiancee and right-hand-woman, had decorated it for him, mostly in mid-century inspired furniture with all the modern conveniences in place. 

“We can find something else to do,” Steve offered.

“I guess I’m not really dressed for us to go out anywhere,” you told Steve, turning to lean against the back of his sofa. You had dressed for a day out of doors: plain tennis shoes, a pair of denim shorts, and a red t-shirt with a faded print from a charity 5k you had done a few years prior. You hadn’t even brought a purse, tucking your phone and your wallet into your pocket.

You bit your lip, waiting for a response and feeling foolish for dressing so casually in the first place. After a moment you realized he was staring at you, a strange little smile on his face and a glimmer in his eyes you’d never seen before. When he walked towards you, he move lightly but with purpose, and suddenly you knew.

 _Oh_ , you thought, and then he was there, the warmth of his often over-heated body radiating towards you even in the chill of the air conditioner.

Steve reached up, tilting your gaze up towards his with his thumb and forefinger on your chin.

“We can stay in, if you want,” he offered, eyes gone dark as the searched yours. His strong hands drifted to your waist, settling there, hot and heavy. “I didn’t… I didn’t plan on this but… I’d really like it if we spent the day together, just the two of us.”

As if you’d ever refuse.

 

Steve undressed you slowly, strong hands tracing the path of every curve he revealed. He kissed slowly too, gentle yet claiming, lashes fluttering shut to enjoy every second and revel in each sensation. 

He liked taking it slow sometimes, he would tell you later. It gave him a chance to really live in the moment and blot out the rest of the world. He wanted to commit it to memory in such a way that he could recall everything with just a thought: the scent of your hair, the way your skin felt so soft beneath his fingertips, even the taste of you. All of it. 

You’d never spent the day in bed with someone before, sometimes making love, sometimes just holding each other or talking. Steve liked to be held; the big, strong super-soldier would cuddle close to you, falling asleep listening to the beat of your heart, feeling the calming motion of your fingers through his hair. 

You’d known you wanted him. You’d known that you liked him, quite a lot. It wasn’t until that day that you realized that you were in love with him.

Even better when you realized that he felt the same.

 

You woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed in the bland, nondescript apartment Tony had arranged for you to stay in while you were avoiding the home you’d shared with Steve. You couldn’t even pretend to believe that it had been just a dream -- it had been too real, the detail far too great to be some imagined scene your mind had conjured to amuse you while you slept. 

You remembered it perfectly now, every intimate detail of that day. 

And you realized that you just could not live like this any longer.

You reached for your phone on the bedside table -- a different make and model than you recalled having in your San Diego life, but with the same ringtone and wallpaper -- and quickly thumbed through the menu to pull up Tony’s contact. It was only as it began ringing that you glanced at the clock and realized it was only have past three in the morning, and you considered hanging up but then thought better of it.

After all… it was _Tony_.

True to form, you were greeted with the sound of loud rock music and a cheerful, “Stark!”

“In your lab?” you asked.

Tony chuckled. “See? You _do_ know me. What can I do for you?”

“I need the bullet,” you said.

“The what now?” Tony asked, and you could hear the clink of metal on metal as he worked on something as he spoke.

“I need the bullet,” you repeated. “The one they pulled out of me.”


	8. Chapter 8

You convened your team for a meeting early on the next workday. They seemed perturbed by the very thought of a quiet, organized meeting; apparently, your typical go-to meeting or announcement strategy was to call things out over the sound of the radio while you were all working. The thought of it made you smile; you could imagine it easily yourself working with them, comfortable enough to keep an open forum and not stand on ceremony.

But this was different. You weren’t that person -- not yet, not at the moment, not anymore, however you should think of it -- and the weight of the situation seemed to call for a slightly more formal setting.

They sat in chairs rolled over from their workstations, all of them facing you as you leaned up against your own desk. Their faces, each still bearing the vague familiarity that they had since you had first -- was it the first? -- time you had laid eyes on them, now gazing up at you with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

“I guess this doesn’t stand on much tradition here,” you began with a sigh. “But I wanted to talk to all of you about something very important.” They each nodded, a low murmur of acquiescence circling through the crowd.

“I knew you were prepped before I came back to work here,” you went on. “They told you I had amnesia, and that’s true to a degree. I remember very little about my life prior to getting hurt. But it’s not just that my memories are gone, it’s that they’ve… they’ve been _replaced_. Or so I’m told.”

There was another murmur among the group; you hadn’t really planned on telling them all of this, but in order to proceed with what you had planned, you needed them to understand.

“I woke up after surgery and nothing made sense,” you continued, pulling out your chair with a shaking hand. You sat down shakily, your knees suddenly weak just from confronting it all over again. “The life that I knew, the one I _remembered_ , is not the one I woke to find. I didn’t remember anything -- any of you, anything of this place. But I did remember a life, everything, a world where none of this existed.”

Your team looked horrified; Beth had started to cry. 

“I have been waiting for it to end. To wake up in some hospital bed and find everything back to normal, but it hasn’t happened,” you explained. “So I’ve decided to forego Occam’s razor on this and start considering what seems impossible: that something happened to me that caused the mixed-up memories in my head, that something was _done_ to me.”

“You don’t remember anything?” Beth spoke up quietly, voice small and a little broken on your behalf. “Anything at all? Captain Rogers…?”

You gave her a small smile. “Bits and pieces have come back,” you said, shaking your head. “Not a lot. Nothing really concrete. And I can’t really tell if what I think I remember is real, or something I’ve imagined.”

“Oh god…” she muttered, hand reaching to cover her mouth in a mixture of shock and sympathy.

“But that’s not what we’re here to talk about,” you said quickly, standing up from your chair. You knew you’d start to cry if you let yourself dwell on it any further, or looked at the horrified expressions on your team’s faces. “For the time being, I’m putting my current course of research on hold and focusing instead on finding concrete evidence that there is a scientific explanation to what has happened to me. I realized that isn’t what you signed up for, and there are positions available on other projects for SI, so…”

“I think I can speak for everyone when I say we’re all on board,” one of the techs, a young man named Jared, spoke up. “None of us signed on for a specific project. We just wanted to help.”

“Yeah,” Beth added with a nod. “We’ll still be working for the greater good. And that’s what we all wanted.”

“Exactly,” Jared said, a flurry of agreement rising from the rest of the group. “So tell us, Doc. Where do we start?”

You reached into a drawer on your desk and retrieved a clear plastic bag. Resting in the bottom was a spent bullet, an inch-long slug with an oddly shaped tuliped point, still stained with blood. Stranger still were the small bits of metal and wire that rest alongside it, further pieces of shrapnel that Dr. Cho had removed from your wound.

Holding the bag aloft for your team to see, you nodded at it and said, “We start right here.”

You got to work that very day, and let the project consume you for days at a stretch. There was no going back now: come hell or high water, you would figure this out.

 

Steve was twitching. That should have been a clue that things were going to go badly but it was high adrenaline all around; hot intel had come in about an attempted bioterrorist cell start-up in Boston and there would only be a quick and dirty briefing before the team was i the air en route.

“We’re looking at a possible weaponized virus here,” Tony had intoned, the display screen behind him flashing photos of the suspected terrorists and architectural plans for the 20-story biomedical research company that was operating at a front for the cell.

“Flu?” Natasha asked, sounding terribly blasé about the whole thing. It wasn’t the first time they had faced some crazy bastard trying to murder the world in a real-life game of Plague, Inc.

Tony’s face went uncharacteristically grim. “Smallpox,” he replied, and a low collective gasp sounded in the room.

“Isn’t that something everyone would be vaccinated for?” Bucky spoke up, frowning. He still had the scar from his own inoculation, after all: a round little indentation in his good shoulder, one of the few blemishes that had survived Hydra’s version of the super-soldier serum.

“They stopped giving it in the 70’s,” Bruce spoke up with a sigh, pinching his brow. “It had been eradicated completely, so there wasn’t a need.”

“Then how did someone get their hands on it to weaponize?” Steve asked with a frown, arms crossed over his chest. His foot was tapping, as though he couldn’t sit still; Bucky noticed it but didn’t comment, even as a concerned frown crossed his face.

“Officially, there’s only one sample on ice, in a US lab,” Tony explained. “ _Officially_ , on paper. Everyone knew Russia had it during the Cold War -- it was an open secret. These days, there’s decent intel that everyone has a strain in the freezer somewhere.”

Steve swore and shook his head. “So what are we waiting for?” he asked with a resigned sigh. “Let’s go and get this over with.”


	9. Chapter 9

Steve kept to himself in the plane; there was a storm brewing inside but he ignored it, running over the images of the building layout he had seen in his mind. It had taken only a glance for them to become ingrained in his memory and he tried to use them as a touchstone, to keep his mind focused on the task at hand.

It wasn’t easy.

There hadn’t been any more drinking, not since the evening he’d happily fallen asleep in your arms, only to wake cold and alone once again. Bucky had seen to that, ensuring that not a drop of Thor’s gifted mead remained in the Tower and putting a silent moratorium on anymore being brought in. That was fine; Steve could do without the hangovers, after all, and the constant need to see you that it always brought up.

They’d kept him from barging in on you before, but Bucky hadn’t managed it that last time. Steve was unsure if it was really an inability to hold him back or just some sense of pity that allowed him to make his way down to your lab that day. He preferred not to think on it. He preferred not to think at _all_ , if he could manage.

The day he walked into your room in the med bay and heard you exclaim that you wanted a divorce had broken something inside him. He’d known loss before -- far too much, really, for anyone to bear -- but it had always been by circumstance. Death and time had robbed him of those he loved. This was different.

You had _chosen_ to walk away.

It ate at him now, not that someone would leave -- in some sick way, he had begun to expect as much, as loss had been the only prevailing theme in his life for longer than he could remember -- but that you would do it by choice. That _you_ would do it.

 

He had been a bundle of nerves the day he asked you to share his life; he remembered it with perfect clarity, even as he sat in silence on the jet that was taking him and the others into the eye of the storm. His hands had been shaking as he showed Bucky the ring, needed that little bit of reinforcement from his best friend to have the courage to ask.

“You sure about this?” Bucky had teased with a smile, as if he hadn’t already known. There was something in the way Steve’s eyes light up if you so much as entered the room that had told Bucky that you were the one, even before Steve had realized it.

“I get it now, Buck,” Steve had replied earnestly. “This… all of this… me goin’ in the ice, wakin’ up all these years later? It makes sense. All that happened to me… so I could find _her_.”

You had wept when he asked, and for a moment he had been certain it was out of pity, and that you’d do your best to politely refuse him. But then you had thrown your arms around him and whispered the word _yes_ , over and over again until your voice gave out and the joyful tears took over.

He’d cried that day too.

 

It seemed eons ago now. It wasn’t like with Peggy, when an instant for Steve had become decades for her, and he watched her wither away. She had been gone from him, right from the moment he had awoken. His Peggy had been gone.

It had been the same with his mother, and with Bucky. The most important people in Steve’s life had a terrible habit of leaving him high and dry, all of it happening in the blink of an eye: a bad cold turning worse, turning to the very disease his mother had tried to fight away from its other victims. A slip of a hand on mountain train. But this was different.

You were _there_. He could see you, speak to you, touch you… if you would allow it. But there was a terrible blankness in your eyes, an unwillingness there to believe that what you had shared had been real.

And it was eating him alive from the inside.

 

“How much longer?” he called, voice hollow. He didn’t care, really; it was just another day, another mission. That was how his life seemed to go -- downtime to mission, mission to downtime. He found he much preferred the missions these days.

It gave him something to do.

It gave him time not to think so much.

“Wheels down at Logan in twenty,” Natasha told him from where she sat across from him. “We’ll have a chopper from there to drop us directly on the roof.”

Steve snorted. “Not going for a subtle entrance, are we?” he asked dryly.

“Time is a factor,” Natasha responded, not noticing the odd tone to his voice. “Intel showed they may be readying the virus to deploy as early as tonight. Labs are on the top floors; we drop in through the skylights.”

“And if they deploy the virus throughout the building at first sign of us?” Steve countered, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t typically so argumentative, and it caused Natasha to raise a crimson eyebrow.

“Every member of the team for this drop has already been fully inoculated,” Natasha reminded; Steve and Bucky had received the vaccine as children, as had Tony. Steve was unsure as to what Natasha’s history was in that respect, or Clint’s, but if she claimed they were safe, they most likely were. “If you had an issue with the plan, you might have brought it up at the briefing.”

Steve frowned and shook his head, leaning back in his seat. “I don’t have a problem,” he muttered. Natasha didn’t respond, but stared at him for a long moment before turning her attention elsewhere. 

 

The problem was that they didn’t know the signs. Bucky hadn’t been there for the worst of it; he had seen Steve getting into his scrapes here and there, seen him act out a little after the death of his mother, but Steve hadn’t been fully alone then. He’d always had Bucky to lean on.

Peggy had seen it, to a degree. The danger had been part of what attracted her to Steve in the first place, though she had been loathe to ever admit it. He was hotheaded, and reckless; it was worse when he was hurting. She had recognized it the moment his jaw had set in a firm line and it became clear he would do his damnedest to ensure that Sergeant Barnes was well and truly gone before he ever gave up on him.

She’d been able to calm him, just a little. Keep him manageable. 

But Peggy wasn’t there now, and Bucky didn’t know what it looked like when Steve was ready to throw caution to the wind for good. They’d all get a good look at it soon enough, up-close and personal.

They all lurched in their seats when the jet’s landing gear hit the ground with a rough bounce, and Steve was on his feet and gathering his gear before the plane had even stopped moving.


	10. Chapter 10

By the time the chopper dropped them on the roof of the laboratory building, Steve was more or less running on a hair trigger. He was practically bouncing in his boots, fists clenching and unclenching as they quickly tried to unpack all of the equipment necessary to get them into the building. The sound of the chopper hadn’t gone unnoticed; Steve could see through the domed skylights that the scientists-cum-bioterrorists were scurrying around.

Either they were destroying evidence or, worse, readying the virus to be dissemintated as quickly as possible. Whatever the case, Steve wasn’t waiting any longer.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, glancing back to where Clint was fussing with a gear bag.

“The fucking latch bars are snapped shut wrong and none of them will fucking open!” Clint growled back, uncharacteristically irritated. “We haven’t used this gear in weeks, who the hell we have working in supply?!”

“Can you fix it?” Natasha asked him, voice even as can be, stepping over to place one hand on his shoulder where he knelt.

Clint seemed to calm almost immediately, and heaved a sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’ll just take a little time.”

“We don’t _have_ time,” Steve mused, and promptly hopped onto the nearest skylight with enough force to shatter it, sending him directly into the lab below. He could hear the scattered swearing above him, even through the shrieks and shouts in the lab, where he landed in a crouched position, but still on his feet.

His shield was in the air in seconds, taking out two guards who had been heading for him and a lab-coated man with a large metal cylinder who had been making for the door. Alarm bells started ringing and more arms guards began pouring in. Bucky hit the floor through another skylight a few feet away, having jumped straight through to follow; Natasha and Clint glided down elegantly on strong nylon cord just moments later.

“Steve, you class-A fucking idiot!” Bucky shouted, face red and furious.

Steve ignored him. “I’m good here,” he called, neatly elbowing a guard in the face. “Barnes, get to the vaults downstairs, Hawkeye and Widow, round up anyone who’s making a run for it. We got air support?”

“Stark is overhead, watching for anyone who’s made it out,” Clint called, moving for the double doors that led to the stairwells. 

“Good,” Steve called back,, zip-tying the hands of one subdued guard before moving on to the next. “Let’s keep this fast and clean, folks! Go!”

Bucky was already down a floor and replied over the communication line with a clearly irritated, “Would’ve been fast and clean if you hadn’t jumped through the god damn window!”

Steve didn’t bother to respond.

 

No one was really sure _how_ the fire got started. In the aftermath, it was strongly suspected that it was some sort of failsafe in the building’s security protocols: burn the evidence if they were in danger of being caught. The only problem with that plan was that Steve and the rest of the team were following their usual plan of subduing and restraining -- meaning there were dozens of rogue scientists, special security, and syndicate peons scattered throughout the building either handcuffed or zip-tied, some even unconscious.

Much as the team despised what they had been doing, they weren’t about to leave them to burn. They swept the burning building, floor by floor, until they’d gotten each and every human waste of space out and into waiting police vans and ambulances. But for some reason, when they regrouped outside, the team found themselves one short.

“We got everybody?” Bucky asked, glancing around the parking lot that had become ground zero for local law enforcement’s wrap-up. The team had come to an agreement of sort with most large local law enforcement agencies; once all the bad guys were rounded up and detained, the team would leave to let the locals handle the rest. No muss, no fuss -- and best of all, no paperwork.

Saving the world a few times over had garnered them a bit of leeway in that regard.

“All the unfriendlies are bagged and tagged,” Clint confirmed, poking one particularly surly goon with the toe of his boot where he sat bound on the pavement, and earning a grunt in return.

“Then why am I showing one moving body still inside the Towering Inferno here?” Tony’s voice came over the communication line. He was surveying the scene from overhead, using the infrared abilities of his suit to peer inside the building; the moving body was showing up cooler than the atmosphere for a change, with the fire still blazing in spite of the firefighters working hard at dousing the flames on the west side of the building.

“Jesus Christ, where the fuck is Steve?” Bucky snapped, taking a quick headcount of those standing near.

“We didn’t get all of the virus canisters out,” Steve’s voice, only slightly out of breath, came over the communication line.

“Uh Cap? I’m no expert here, but I think maybe you should get out of the burning building,” Clint said, eyes flicking towards the blaze.

“The heat from the fire will take care of the virus,” Natasha advised, sounding too calm for the situation at hand. “You need to get out _now_.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Steve responded with a grunt. “We’ve got almost three full generations of people without immunity in this country alone, let alone overseas. Can’t take any chances. I’ll just get the last cylinders and…”

Bucky thought for a moment that the sudden disturbance over the line was simply static, until he realized the crashing sound was echoing out into the open. The building’s roof had given way and fallen down into the building, crashing through at least two floors beneath it.

There were nothing further over the communication line.

 

At four-thirty in the morning, you were still awake. It had taken weeks but you’d finally managed a digital reconstruction of the bullet that made sense. The only problem was… it didn’t make sense.

You were no arms expert but you had vague ideas of how bullets looked and worked, and it hadn’t taken much research to confirm what you’d already known. But this one had been hollow, with some sort of mechanical setup inside. There was a wire spring inside that seemed as though it would be tightly coiled until the bullet was fired; once shot out, it would expand inside and activate a mechanism involving two micro-magnets. There were no chemical traces outside of gunpowder; it was driving you a little bit mad.

The sleeplessness was not uncommon for you. It always seemed to crop up when you were working on a tough problem, or when Steve was away. You’d heard their transport helicopter returning from Tony’s private airstrip upstate some hours ago and had been happy at least that they were home. You hadn’t seen Steve since the night you had slipped out of his bed -- _our_ bed, you had thought sadly -- and you’d done your best to avoid him since. 

You ached to see him, and that was the worst of it: despite the gaps in your memory, the life you had known with him just out of reach and supplanted by another far lonelier world, the affection hadn’t waned in the slightest. You loved him -- just as you loved all of them, your friends, your makeshift family in the Tower -- but you had no empirical evidence in your mind as to _why_.

You sighed, giving up on your notes and any hope for sleep that night, grabbing a remote from the coffee table to turn on the morning news.

“Breaking news of Massachusetts this morning, where emergency crews are still fighting a five-alarm fire at the Brettner Laboratories building in downtown Boston,” a grim-faced man in a gaudy tie intoned. “We now go live to our local affiliate Nancy Loo with the story. Nancy?”

The screen shifted to a middle-aged Asian woman who nodded at the camera, standing several feet away from a fire engine.

“Thank you, Vincent,” she began. “I’m live here at Brettner Labs where local firefighters have been battling a blaze since early this morning. We’re told this began as a terrorism infiltration spearheaded by the Avengers team. The fire began not long after initial touchdown by the Avengers. According to local law enforcement, they suspect that the fire was intentionally set by Brettner personnel in a cover-up effort.”

“Where there any injuries, Nancy?” Vincent-of-the-bad-tie asked, coming in on a split screen.

“Two firefighters are being treated locally for minor injuries,” Nancy informed him. “We’ve heard from witnesses that one of the Avengers team, Steve Rogers, most commonly known by the moniker ‘Captain America’, was seen carried out unconscious from the building after the roof collapsed and loaded into an Avengers transport. We haven’t heard any updates on his condition so far…”

The television remote fell from your hand; you were on your feet and out the door so quickly, you forgot to close the door behind you.


	11. Chapter 11

You couldn’t wait for the elevator; you had to take the stairs, practically running them to burn off a little of the nervous energy. Your hands were shaking and you felt jittery inside, a cold sweat on your brow. You couldn’t be sure if your heavy breathing was from the exertion or if you were edging into hyperventilating. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

Four. Four times. You remembered them all with sudden, startling clarity.

The first time, you were still just dating; you’d been spend nights together more and more and you were still lounging around Steve’s rooms in the Tower after he’d been called out in the middle of the night. It had been bad. They came back late afternoon with Steve bleeding out from multiple gunshots. That was the day you learned he had listed you as an emergency contact; they’d called you even before they landed.

Then there was the broken leg -- femur broken in three places, still only took hours to knit itself back together.

The day he had been nearly taken captive, and Tony had to blast the team’s way through a four foot thick concrete barrier to get to him. Steve had taken a hard hit on the way out, falling into the debris and getting a spoke of rusty rebar through his ankle. That one had taken longer; the bone had started to heal around the rebar and it had to be rebroken to remove it properly. 

The last one had been pretty simple, just a fracture in his right wrist. Still you hd run for medical as soon as you’d gotten word that he was hurt and needed to stop there first before coming home, and he’d smiled o see you. He always said that you by his side did more for him than all the doctors in the world.

That they hadn’t even notified you this time was like a knife to the gut. Maybe that had been at his request; maybe he’d taken you off his emergency notification list altogether, even though you were still legally his next of kin. He’d send you the papers a week after you’d gone to stay in the bland little apartment that Tony had set up for you, with a little note saying that he wouldn’t argue if this was what you really wanted, but you could never bring yourself to sign them.

 

When you reached the right floor and finally exited the stairwell, you rn only a handful of paces before you smacked directly into Bucky, stumbling back to fall on your ass and glare up at him.

“Where is he? Is he okay?” you demanded, not even pausing for a breath.

“He’s fine,” Bucky said, reaching a hand to help you to your feet. He spoke in an easy, measured tone, clearly trying calm you. “Everything is fine, you just need to…”

“Bucky, where _is_ he?” you snapped, voice rising a notch in tone and tenor.

“Captain Rogers returned to his quarters several hours ago,” Dr. Cho cut in coolly, stepping out of her office to greet you. “Please lower your voice. It’s early and Mr. Barton is still resting.”

You glanced back to Bucky. “Clint?” you asked.

“Second degree burns,” he explained. “He’ll be okay.”

Knowing that Clint was safe and so, apparently, was Steve, you wheeled on Dr. Cho. “Why wasn’t I notified that Steve was injured? We have a protocol in place, I’m supposed to be called as soon as you know that Steve will require medical attention.”

“Wait, no one called you?” Bucky asked, surprised. He had thought your panicke arrival had been slow-building, that you had known of Steve’s injuries and demurred coming to his side until you could no longer stand it.

Dr. Cho’s expression remained neutral and calm. “Given your current situation, we thought it best not to follow that particular protocol.”

“Don’t you give me that, Helen!” you shouted angrily. “Unless you had a signed directive stating otherwise, you follow standard goddamn protocol!” You had lunged for her, the amped up energy and anxiety running through your veins bursting out in a fit of anger, but Bucky caught you around the waist and pulled you back.

You remembered it suddenly: jealousy. Professional, yes -- you had known Helen, during your undergrad, when she was beginning her postsecondary. You had divergent fields but you had both had your sights on working with SHIELD; any advance one made only spurred the other on further.

But there was more than that. You were never certain if she’d had an eye for Steve himself, or if it was the way you had become closer to the others, more a part of their inner circle than she ever had, that had galled her. But the chilliness was always there, still lingering between you.

The disapproval in her gaze, that day months ago when you sat in your hospital bed, made even more sense than it had then.

“C’mon, Doc, he’s not here,” Bucky said, pulling you away from the scene of your outburst even as Dr. Cho stalked away on her sensible heels, back into her office. “We’ll deal with this mess later, lemme fill you in and you can go see Steve.”

“She should have _called me_ ,” you told him, shaking your head. You felt suddenly exhausted, overwrought and near tears. It was just too much. “I should have been here, Bucky, I should have _been_ here for him. He hates hospitals, he shouldn’t have been alone!”

That was another memory, sparked by the situation at hand. He had confessed it quietly, that first time you’d met him in medical. That he hated hospitals -- that he was afraid of them. It reminded him too much of when he was young, when an illness would force him into a hospital and his mother would have to work, to afford his medical bills and to keep them afloat while he was ill, and he’d spend alone hours all alone in an empty children’s ward.

The loneliness, the fear. It would all come back to him.

You’d promised him then that you’d always be there for him, so long as he kept a promise of his own: that he’d always come home to you.

You knees buckled as you reached the elevator, and Bucky had to guide you inside with an arm at your waist, keeping you on your feet.

“I p-p-promised…!” you sobbed.

“I know, Doc, I know,” Bucky told you gently. “It’ll be alright, yeah? Stevie just got himself knocked upside the head. Minor skull fracture, they said. Mostly healed by the time we got home.”

“A skull fracture?” you asked in horror. “Oh god, should he even be on his own now? Shouldn’t he be monitored in medical?”

Bucky chuckled. “You know Steve,” he told you. “Long as he can walk, he’s not gonna stick around. Cho said he was good to go and he went back to his place to sleep it off. He’s fine. But I bet seein’ you would do him a world of good.”

You rubbed the tears from your face with the sleeve of your robe -- realizing, much to your embarrassment, that you were wearing a ratty old bathrobe, open over a novelty nightshirt featuring a screenprint of a sleepy Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.

“Yeah,” you agreed, sniffling. “Yeah, I need to see him.”


	12. Chapter 12

Steve dreamed of you often. He’d always been a prolific dreamer and you featured regularly in his nighttime fantasies even when you were sleeping there beside him. It had gotten all the more frequent in the months you’d been away.

Sometimes they were memories, his mind putting on a tortuous little slideshow as he slept, running over some of his most favored moments with you, only to wake to the grim reminder of an un-creased pillow and an empty bed. Lately, there had been more nightmares than anything else. One recurring dream saw him as a ghost of sorts; you’d go about your day and he’d be standing right there beside you, trying to talk to you, get your attention, but you couldn’t seem to see or hear him at all. It left him waking in a cold sweat, more often than not. 

A head injury at least provided him with a little relief: a deep, dreamless sleep. It almost seemed worth the pounding headache. 

He was laying flat on his stomach, on top of the bedclothes, when you crept in.

 

Just entering the apartment had given you goosebumps. You hadn’t been back but once since the day you had fainted; Bucky had retrieved some clothes and nondescript toiletries for you when you had made it clear you had no intention of returning to set up house, even temporarily. It was just as you remembered, but carried an air of disuse. You’d heard more than once that Steve tended to avoid going home at night, staying in common areas into the wee hours of the morning or arranging things to crash at Bucky’s apartment.

Bucky had given you a rundown of Steve’s injuries as he walked you there, leaving you at the door to deal with FRIDAY on your own.

“This is not your current principal dwelling,” the AI had reminded when you’d asked that the door be unlocked.

You’d glared up at the ceiling. “This is my _home_ , FRIDAY. Open the fucking door.”

The AI had complied, but not without a haughty little huff in response. You’d deal with offended building attendant systems later; you had greater concerns to deal with now.

Steve had left dishes in the sink and his boots by the door, both uncharacteristic of him; the knowledge came to you simply, no grand flashes of memory or sudden realizations. You just _knew_ \-- just as you knew how you’d find him, sprawled across the bed, still in the sweaty t-shirt and boxer briefs he wore beneath his suit, which was in a heap on the floor.

You fought the urge to clean up after him and simply slipped into the bed, sitting with your back to the dark cherry headboard to watch him sleep and think things over for awhile.

 

It had been a piece of laboratory machinery that had taken him down, Bucky told you. Steve had been three floors below the roof when it collapsed, stubbornly insisting he track down every last canister of a viral concoction before leaving the burning building. When the roof came down, it caved in the floors beneath it, and a glancing blow from an ultracentrifuge to his temple as it rained down from above had been enough to take knock him out.

He’d gotten some minor burns before he was found, but they’d all but healed very quickly, and his oxygen levels had improved all the way back to normal by the time the team had gotten him back to the Tower.

They’d taken their scans and x-rays, concluding there had indeed been a significant fracture, but there hadn’t been any brain swelling and the bone had started to knit back together almost immediately. Steve had needed a few dissolving stitches and some observation before he had been cleared to leave medical, but the healing he needed wasn’t physical. Bucky had stressed that to you on the walk down.

“He’s takin’ risks he shouldn’t, doll,” Bucky had explained. “Pig-headed as all get out. No reason for him to be runnin’ around in a fire like that. If they heat hadn’t killed the rest of that virus, it would have been contained enough for it to be handled by professionals once the fire was out.”

“He’s making bad decisions in the field?” you asked, frowning.

Bucky sighed. “Feelin’ more like he doesn’t give a damn if he makes it back or not. You gotta try and talk him down, once you feel better yourself. Can’t stand to see the two of you like this.”

 

So there you were, watching Steve sleep, in the very bed you once shared, wondering if you were making a mistake even being there. This was getting in far too deep; there wouldn’t be any going back, if you let yourself give in now.

But he _needed_ you. How could you turn your back on that?

You were still watching him in silent contemplation when Steve shuffled in his sleep, his body recognizing your presence and drawing nearer of its own accord. He had just settled himself with his head in your lap when the vague, dreamy expression on his face had turned to a frown and he blinked his eyes open, staring up at you with a sleepy gaze.

“I hate dreams like this,” he half-spoke, half-whispered. His voice was hoarse, no doubt still raw from all of the smoke he had breathed in. Some things healed quickly; others took more time. The injury to his head looked like little more than a scratch, with a few oversized stitches that didn’t need to be there. His cheeks were still stained with soot, the outline of his cowl just barely visible; at least he’d made some half-hearted attempt to wipe it away.

“Why’s that?” you asked, using the sleeve of your soft violet terrycloth robe to clean up his face.

Steve closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “You’re always gone when I wake up,” he said with a low sigh.

“What if I promised to stay this time?” you asked, dropping your sleeve so you could touch him without a barrier between you; his skin was warm and rough against your palm, early morning stubble on his cheeks.

Steve’s eyes opened again, wider this time in disbelief. “You’re really here?” he asked, voice shaking.

You smiled as best you could, trying not to cry. “I made a promise, didn’t I?” you told him. “I’m sorry I’m a little late. But you haven’t been keeping your promises either.”

Steve said your name softly and frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked, arching a brow and wincing at the soreness in his head.

“Jumping through windows without a line?” you asked, shaking your head. “Running around burning labs? You promised me you’d come home safe.”

Steve’s expression darkened and he sat up, pulling away. “Bucky put you up to this?” he asked, voice bitter and shoulders hunched. “He can be as concerned as he wants but it ain’t fair, tryin’ to play me like this.”

“Steve, no…” you began, reaching out to touch his shoulder, but he jerked away. “I’ve been remembering. Some things, not everything… bits and pieces mostly. Everything else is still there, what I woke up with, but other things are coming back. That came back, just tonight.”

“You can’t pretend like you remember,” he told you obstinately, refusing to meet your gaze. “It’s cruel, doin’ that to me. I’d do anything for you, Doc, but you can’t… you can’t…”

You racked your mind for something, anything that would convince him. Bucky knew most of what you shared with Steve; it was inevitable, as close as the two were. Best of friends by choice, brothers forged in battle. The only person in the world who had been closer to Steve than Bucky… was you.

But some things, you knew, Steve didn’t share. They were too personal, too private. Steve held them sacred -- and so did you.

He still wouldn’t look at you, but he didn’t flinch away when you reached out and touched him, gently caressing his cheek.

“I do remember,” you insisted, voice low and soft. “I remember some of the important things, I swear it. Things Bucky could never have told me.”

You felt a hot tear slide down his cheek, slipping over your fingertips.

“I remember,” you went on, voice shaking just slightly. “I remember the day it was raining. We were supposed to go to Governor’s Island, but it rained. I was so happy that it rained.”

Steve turned to you suddenly and sharply, eyes wide with surprise. He said your name in a low gasp and before you could respond, he crushed his lips to yours.


	13. Chapter 13

There was such an immense feeling of relief that came with finally giving in. All the time you had spent fighting this, fighting your every instinct in deference to a muddled mind… it had been exhausting. This, now… letting yourself be pressed back against the pillows, tasting the familiarity of Steve’s kiss… it was the most relaxed you’d felt since the moment you woke to your confused state.

You knew this. Maybe you couldn’t remember every kiss, every caress, but you _knew_ this; you didn’t even have to think. You knew that Steve loved to hear your voice, that the sound of your gaps could draw out goosebumps on his skin; you knew that he loved to be touched, the feel of your hands gliding down his back, nails gently raking his skin. You knew where to kiss, where to nip with your teeth, just how hard to tug at his hair.

And Steve… he knew your body as well as his own, bringing you to mind-blowing highs and kissing and soothing you in the comedown. You couldn’t help the way you wept in his arms, finally allowing yourself what you had been longing for. When morning came, you would wake in the arms of the man you loved -- who you had loved all along.

Maybe something had robbed you of your memory, planted false ones in its wake, but it couldn’t remove the bond you had with Steve. Even with so much taken from you, you knew without question that Steve Rogers was the love of your life.

Nothing would ever change that. You could wake up tomorrow, back in the lonely world you could remember completely, and you’d still love him all the same.

You told him as much without realizing, between kisses and tears, your bodies moving in concert, a sweet symphony you’d hold in your heart for all of your days to come.

 

It was nearly noon before you were roused to wakefulness and as consciousness seeped in, you were afraid to open your eyes. There was a silent terror inside of you, fearing that once you greeted the new day, you’d find yourself in some hospital bed following a bad accident or even worse, in the lonely apartment you’d had in San Diego.

“You’re really here,” Steve’s voice broke gently into your ear, and you smiled, opening your eyes to find him curled against you in the bed you had once shared.

“I am,” you agreed, smiling still as Steve leaned to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. You sighed happily at the gesture and found yourself kissing him long and deep before you even realized, morning breath be damned. You were finally allowing yourself to love him again; you’d take any and every kiss you could manage.

When Steve pulled away, he wore an expression with a mixture of hopefulness and trepidation.

“Are you going to stay this time?” he asked in a carefully measured tone.

“I suppose that’s up to you,” you told. You reached to gently touch his face, loving the way he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “Steve… Baby, can I come home?”

You gasped in surprise when his arms circled around you, pulling you close against his chest as he rolled onto his back and then again, to pin you beneath his weight against the mattress. You laughed, tickled by his hair as he nuzzled against your chest.

“Only s’long you promise me you’ll never, ever leave again,” he told you, and you laughed. He lifted his head to press his forehead against yours. “Never, ever, ever, you hear?”

“I promise!” you told him, giggling even as you peppered his face with kisses. “I promise, I promise, I promise…!”

A little more than six months since the day you awoke to confusion and fainted in your living room, you were finally home again.

 

It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon when you finally made your way into the kitchen. Steve was still in the shower; you had been sharing the warm spray but you had ducked out when your fingers had gone pruney, laughing at the way Steve had tried to pull you back in. You’d pulled a fresh nightgown from your dresser -- something a little more sexy, pale lilac silk with thin straps and a low back, the hem falling only to mid-thigh.

Eeyore had, regretfully, not made it through the night, ripped from collar to hem in a single swoop of Steve’s strong hands.

You could hear Steve whistling as he puttered around the bedroom and you took your time poking around the fridge. It may have been well into the afternoon but it was still breakfast-time for you and Steve, so you pulled out a carton of eggs, some butter, and a package of bologna. It was second nature; you hadn’t even had to stop and think.

Scrambled eggs. Buttered toast. Fried bologna. Steve was a creature of habit and a man of simple tastes; he was happy so long as the food was hot, and there was a _lot_ of it. You were startled with a sudden memory of the previous Thanksgiving at the Tower; Tony had learned from previous years and catered in a record _five_ huge turkeys for the occasion. Between the hyperstimulated metabolisms of Steve, Bucky, and Natasha, and the general gluttonous atmosphere of the holiday, there were still barely any leftovers.

You grinned to yourself; every new memory made you smile.

“That smells amazing!” Steve announced as he came out of the bedroom. He’d gone for a minimalist approach to dressing after his shower, wearing a pair of soft grey sleep pants that rode low enough on his hips that you knew he wore nothing underneath.

 _That_ certainly had potential.

His skin was still bright pink from the heat of his shower, his cheeks gone ruddy and even his chest a bright and cheery pink.

You laughed. “Look at you, Irish,” you said, and your jaw dropped even as the wods tumbled from your lips.

The memory came with sudden clarity: his birthday, early on in your relationship. A day in the park in the sunshine before returning home to the Tower, retreating to the soundproofed private screening room to blot out the night’s fireworks with Disney films, joined first by Bucky and then gradually the rest of the team as the night wore on.

Steve had been bright red, courtesy of the sunny day, and you had teased him mercilessly.

“Look at you, Irish,” you had told him, shaking your head. “Not even the serum can keep you from burning, huh?”

You’d called him that ever since, a little pet name shared between the two of you. You felt warm and bubbly inside just for remembering. 

Steve smiled. “You just remember that?” he asked gently. He didn’t want to push or pry; in the moments when he hadn’t been wallowing in his grief, he’d tried to understand the medical side of amnesia and recovery. He’d had enough background in it with Bucky as it was; he knew you had to take things slow.

You nodded. “It’s been like that. Little things, bit by bit. I still don’t… Steve, I’m still on shaky ground sometimes. I don’t know what’s real and I have two different lives living in my head.”

“But you want to be here… don’t you?” he asked. He bit his lip, and you knew he was unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.

You walked to him slowly, slipping your arms around his trim waist. “I’ve never been so happy as I am right now,” you said honestly. “I want to be here. To be with you. Whatever else happens, you have to know that.”


	14. Chapter 14

You took a few days off; you decided you deserved it. You had a lot to re-learn. What little you remembered wasn’t quite enough to share space with Steve again. You had to get used to his idiosyncrasies -- just as he needed to get used to any of yours that were new after your brain got scrambled. 

Steve just enjoyed having you home. He didn’t care if you didn’t sing in the shower anymore, as long as he could be there to wrap you up in a towel as you came out, or, better still, join you under the warm spray. He didn’t mind that you ordered black olives on pizza, as long as he could share it with you, seated in a cozy booth in his favorite pizzeria, hands linked beneath the table. He had no problem giving you your space on days when half-thought memories overwhelmed you and you needed to decompress, as long as you came home when you were ready.

“I just want to be with you,” Steve told you earnestly, as the last vestiges of a bad day eased from your mind and you slipped into the bedroom you were sharing once again. “Whatever you need from me, even if it’s just to get out of your hair for awhile, I’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”

You couldn’t help the easy smile that came to your face. “I’ll never leave you again, not for good. I can at least promise you that,” you told him, and slid into the bed beside him. 

The best part of spending time away from your work was that you were getting to know and understand Steve in a way you hadn’t before. There were two things you had known to be true when you awoke to this strange new world: first, and most important, you loved Steve Rogers with all your heart and all your soul, and, second, and most frustrating, you didn’t know _why_.

Objectively, he was attractive. There was no denying that. The actor that played him on the other side of the universe was pretty easy on the eyes, part and parcel for his job description, and had put on considerable muscle mass for the role, so that was understandable. But this Steve -- the _real_ Steve, if you’d even dare to think it, was beautiful in a way that went beyond his hard body and pretty eyelashes. There was something inside of him -- something innate to Steve himself, body and soul -- that you’d never seen in anyone before. He wasn’t just a perfect physical specimen; he was _good_. You could look in his eyes and know that the world was better for him being in it. He wasn’t perfect -- he was human and made mistakes like anyone else -- but he never stopped trying to be better. You could see why you -- or this version of you, her, whatever you were calling it lately -- had been drawn to him.

But there was more than that. You got butterflies in your stomach when he smiled at you. The touch of his hand at the small of your back could calm you in an instant. When his eyes would go dark, a little smirk playing on his lips, and he’d meet your gaze, it would send a delicious shiver up and down your spine. And when you slipped into bed beside him, the sheets cool against your skin and his delightful warmth surrounding you as he pulled you close, to hold you and whisper sweet things until you each drifted off… you knew that if heaven existed, it would be just like this. 

Steve wasn’t perfect -- you knew that. You _knew_ that. He drank the orange juice straight from the carton, and put it back in the fridge with little left. His socks somehow never seemed to find the hamper. He’d sketch in bed and you’d wake up to sheets marked with graphite from where he’d lost his pencil. He broke the spine on the books that he read and dogeared the pages -- even on _your_ books, no matter how many times you asked him not to. Sometimes he’d take his frustrations out on you -- a bad day at work could translate to Steve picking a fight over something stupid. He’d always apologize though, and admit that it wasn’t really about anything between the two of you.

Not once since you’d come home had he failed to kiss you goodnight.

You were in love with him, completely. The you that was -- the one that he knew -- and the one you were now, with the muddled mind and confused memories. You loved him. You just didn’t know how to stop -- and you didn’t really want to.

 

Eventually you had to get back to work. You didn’t want to; Steve had been relatively mission-free for the whole time you had stayed home to re-learn your life, and you had luxuriated in spending the time with him. Steve wasn’t terribly keen on you leaving either.

Your alarm went off at seven sharp -- it was a nice perk to the job that your commute was an elevator ride and saved you so much time -- and Steve groaned to hear it. You’d both been away for an hour or so, cuddled close beneath your blankets and enjoying the dark your blackout shades provided along with the quiet of the early morning.

As soon as you reached and turned off the alarm, Steve flipped you onto your back and caged you in with his arms, having pulled the comforter over both of your heads. He whispered your name and nuzzled beneath your ear, even as you giggled.

“Stay with me,” he implored. “One more day, baby doll, please? Just one more.”

You sighed and let your eyes fall shut, enjoying his pleas for the moment, smiling when his gentle nuzzling gave way to soft kisses along your shoulder.

“That’s what you said yesterday,” you reminded, and Steve hummed.

“Yesterday was a great day,” he countered. “Let’s have another.”

“And the day before that,” you pointed out, and felt his lips pull into a smile against your skin.

“I can be very convincing when the need arises,” Steve responded, his knee gently nudging yours apart so he could settle himself on the bed between your thighs. 

“I don’t think the need is the only thing rising this morning, Steven,” you teased, enjoying the way his laugh rumbled against you. When his lips strayed to your throat and you couldn’t hold back the soft moan that slipped from your lips, Steve grinned.

“Oh well,” you said, gliding your hands up the arm bare skin of his back. “I suppose I can be late…”

 

When you finally made it into work, somewhere around half past nine, you were smiling, hair still damp from your shower. Your technicians were hard at work already -- that had reverted to your initial wormhole project while you took some time away -- and greeted you cheerfully as you made your way into the lab. You decided to let them keep at it for the time being, and resigned to work at your pet project on your own for the day.

The specs of the bullet still had you puzzled. It made some small amount of sense, in that the pieces fit together as they should in the computer models you were working with while the actually bullet itself sat in pieces in a sealed bag on your workspace, but the function was still beyond your grasp. You knew at the least that it was a custom construction, so there was no tracing the manufacture through serial numbers and purchase receipts. At best, you could work towards breaking down the minute elements in the mass-spec, but you wanted to save that for a last ditch effort.

You were re-reading a report on the holographic digital screen before you when someone crept up behind you and with two pointed fingers on each hand, poked you hard in the sides. You jumped, arms wrapped around yourself in an automatic defensive position.

“Damnit, Darcy!”

The words were out of your mouth before you even saw her, standing there with a grin and beanie pulled down over her waves of dark hair.

“Aha!” she declared triumphantly. “So you do remember me!”

You couldn’t help yourself; you burst into laughter and found yourself suddenly hugging the other woman with the force and affection of seeing a good friend after a long absence, and realized that to some degree, you were. Much as it had been with Steve, your mind and heart told you that this person was important to you.

The memories might have waned, but the affection simply couldn’t.

Pulling away, you punched her hard in the shoulder.

“Yowch!” Darcy yelped, rubbing her arm. “What the hell was that for?”

“It’s been over six months since I was shot and had my brain run through a metaphoric blender, and you just show up _now_?!” you demanded.

Darcy shrugged, hands in the air. “My bad?”


	15. Chapter 15

You weren’t really mad at Darcy; you couldn’t be. She was your best friend, but her life was as busy as yours could be, working as an assistant to Dr. Jane Foster and traveling wherever the doctor’s research took them. It wasn’t unusual for you to go weeks or even months, forgetting to text or email back, forgetting to pencil in a nice long phone cat. But it never made any difference; when Darcy returned to New York, you could pick up your friendship where you had left off, no questions asked. 

The nature of your personalities, when combined, was just so that you had to give her some shit before welcoming her back with opens arms.

“They called me, y’know,” she explained over coffee in the Tower cafeteria. “Right away when you got hurt, but then Steve said it wasn’t too bad and I didn’t have to rush back from Geneva, you’d just give me a call when you were up for it.”

Understanding suddenly dawned on you. “And then he told you to stay away entirely, until I was a little less hinky in the brainpan?” you filled in, and Darcy nodded.

“They thought it would, like, over-stress you even more than you were stressed,” she explained. “Might just make things worse.”

“I get it,” you agreed, nodding. “I’ve been… to be honest, I’m still not certain what’s what, but I’m coping better than I had been.”

“Yeah, I heard you moved back in with hubs, so I figure it was safe for me to make my grand entrance,” Darcy told you with a grin. Her expression softened, concern overtaking her usually cheerful features. “How bad is it, though? Still?”

You gave a slow shrug. “This is familiar,” you explained, gesturing back and forth between the two of you. “I remember little things, not a lot specific, but this is familiar. I’m not uncomfortable being around you, like I might have been before. I get these flashes of… memory, I guess, from time to time.”

“But you have other memories? Like a whole other life?” Darcy prodded. Clearly, they had been telling her a lot more on your condition than you had realized.

“Yeah,” you agreed with a nod. “That part is perfectly clear, everything from being a kid to school to growing up… and in that life, none of this,” you went on, making a vague gesture to indicate your surroundings, “Is real. It’s stuff out of movies and comics and cartoons.”

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Even me?” she asked.

You nodded. “Even you,” you agreed. “I mean it’s not 100% accurate… in the movies, Clint Barton had a wife and kids stashed on a farm somewhere, and a lot of people had died, and all of this crazy stuff. I was trying to get by using casual film knowledge but it didn’t work out so well.”

Snorting, Darcy shook her head. “I’m sure Romanoff loved the wife and kids thing,” she drawled.

“She was _not_ amused,” you agreed, laughing. “But some of it was real… or true… or whatever. I could tell Steve about conversations he had with people I’d never met. It’s the only thing, I think, that made Tony and Bruce believe I wasn’t actually off my rocker.”

“So what’s the plan now?” Darcy pressed. “Just play happy families with Stevie-boy and hope it all goes away?”

“You should know me better than that,” you told her with an arch of your eyebrow, and Darcy grinned. 

“Damn straight. You strapped on your lab coat and have been working it out, haven’t you?”

You nodded. “Trying to. I’ve kinda hit a wall at the moment and I lost some time in… in reconnecting with Steve.”

“That’s one name for it,” Darcy said, prefacing her words with a wolf whistle, and you blushed. “Don’t be embarrassed, Doc. People’d be lining up in bed to jump a super-soldier, no shame in spending all your time making the most of it. And speaking of super-soldiers, just where is Buckalicious this time of day?”

“He and Steve were training this morning, so they should be down to eat a week’s worth of lunch at some point in the near future,” you told her with a small laugh. The staff at the Tower cafeteria had very quickly acclimated to the appetites of the enhanced members of the team; meals were cooked in massive quantities daily, and Tony had any uneaten food distributed to local soup kitchens and shelters. 

You paused and surveyed Darcy for a moment, frowning as you thought on it. You had memories of her and Bucky, situations that almost seemed like double-dates, but there never seemed to be much more than casual touches, a brief grab of a hand or a tap on the shoulder.

“You and Bucky,” you finally had to asked. “Are you two…?” you trailed off.

Darcy arched an eyebrow. “You don’t know?” she asked.

You shook your head. “I told you, bits and pieces,” you reminded.

Darcy sighed. “We’re not,” she said, and pouted down at her empty coffee cup. “Not for lack of trying, let me tell you. But he’s not… there yet? Like… I mean, I _know_ he likes me, and I really like him, but… he’s been through a lot, you know? And he knows he’s not ready, which is good. Knowing where he stands.”

“Have you two talked about it?” you asked.

Darcy nodded, a small smile on her face. “He said I’m a ‘classy dame’ but he doesn’t want me waiting on something that might be too broken to fix. Can you imagine? I said fine, I won’t wait on him, if that’s what he wants… But I’ve never met anyone who made it _not_ worth waiting.”

You smiled; you loved Bucky like a brother. You could completely understand where he was coming from. He seemed fairly well adjusted in his day to day routine, but you’d seen a few cracks in the surface here and there; Darcy was right, Bucky had been through a _lot_. The damage done couldn’t be fixed in a day. But you hoped, for their sake, he’d find his way.

The idea of your best friend ending up with your husband’s best friend certainly had a sitcom-eque appeal to it, but more than anything, you wanted to see them both happy. You thought they could easily do that for one another; Bucky just needed to heal.

Darcy suddenly perked up. “Hey, did we get together in the movies or whatever?” She deflated with a sigh when you shook your head.

“But they’re not completely accurate, remember? Secret Barton wife,” you prompted.

Darcy snorted. “Man, I’d love to be in the room when you tell that one to Romanoff!”

 

You chatted a while longer before adjourning to your lab. Darcy wanted to see what you had been working on and how far you had gotten in piecing back together whatever had happened to make your memory go haywire, before she called it a day. She’d broken her own rules regarding sleep that she typically imposed on Dr. Foster: no day longer than eighteen hours unless absolutely necessary.

“This is absolutely necessary,” she pointed out as you guided her into your lab. Your staff had dispersed for the day, leaving the two of you alone with your work.

“So this is the bullet,” you told her, holding the plastic bag that held it aloft. 

“That’s a lot of bits and pieces for a bullet,” she responded, taking the bag in hand. Almost immediately, a low warning tone sounded in the lab and you glanced around in confusion. It didn’t sound like any of the alarms you had in the lab, unless there was one you hadn’t yet remembered.

“Whoa, sorry,” Darcy said, swapping the bagged bullet into the opposite hand. “Forgot about this,” she added, gesturing with her wrist. You had noticed the silver bangle bracelet she had been wearing since she arrived, but assumed it was just an accessory she had picked up somewhere.

“What’s that?” you asked, nodding at it.

“Oh, they make us wear these in Jane’s lab all the time,” Darcy explained. “It just gives a warning when it picks up some leftover gamma radiation, the louder the beep, the more dangerous it is. This was nothing.”

Your eyes widened. You’d put the remains of the bullet that had hit you through every test you c could think of, and still you’d never considered _that_.

“Put the bullet back in that hand,” you told her slowly, and Darcy was quick to comply. Almost immediately, the low alarm began to sound.

“Oh my god…” you said, shaking your head. “How could I be so blind?”

“Wait, what?” Darcy asked, getting excited. “Did I help with something important? Did you not know this thing had gamma exposure?”

“I had no idea!” you told her, just as excited. “We have to get this to Tony and Bruce, we’ve got to run more tests!”

Darcy punched the air in celebration. “Darcy for the win!” she declared.


	16. Chapter 16

Dropping into Bruce’s lab, with Tony hot on your heels, was something like Dorothy going to the Emerald City, you thought. But instead of being rushed about to have your dress cleaned and your hair curled, you were put through geiger counters and blood draws. They were like overgrown children with a brand new sparkly toy to play with, confiscating your bullet and Darcy’s bracelet alike.

“Foster has these?” Tony had asked, eyeballing the bracelet. “And she’s not sharing? That’s not very fair.”

Darcy had snorted. “How many Iron Man suits did you ship her way to backward-engineer?” she asked with a grin.

Tony pointed at her. “Touche,” he agreed with a curt nod. “I’m still taking this thing apart, though.”

“Hey!” Darcy cried. “I had to put a security deposit down for that!”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll put it back together,” Tony told her, walking away with the bracelet in hand. “It’ll be even better than before.”

“I think we’ve done all we can for tonight,” Bruce broke in, cutting off Darcy’s whining. He gave you a friendly smile. “We’re going to have to run some more tests, see if we can get a line on the power source used to generate this kind of radiation.”

“Has it affected my health?” you asked, concern in your voice.

Bruce shook his head. “It’s a relatively low level,” he explained. “It’s most likely decayed a great deal already; it’s a very unstable form and it’s dissipating quickly. We can monitor, but I feel comfortable saying that it won’t cause you any harm.”

You sighed and leaned you against Bruce’s workbench. “That’s a relief, at least.”

“I want to run more tests, if you’re up for it,” he offered. “Not tonight, but in the next few weeks. It’ll help me track the decay rate of the radiation, which might get us closer to finding out where it came from and why it’s all over the bullet they pulled out of you.”

Darcy yawned. “Is it a higher concentration on the bullet?” she asked. You suppressed a smile; Darcy always liked to downplay her role as Dr. Foster’s assistant and would insist to anyone that ‘the science is way above my paygrade’, but she was very clever and quick on her feet.

Bruce seemed to be thinking the same, wearing a similar smile to yours as he nodded. “The gamma radiation on the bullet fragments is more stable than what’s left on Doc,” he agreed. You always found it funny when he used your nickname; after all, he had far more claim to the title than you, with his multitude of advanced degrees.

“So there’s your proof!” Darcy declared, cheerful in the way she would get when exhausted and swaying on her feet. “Now we know absolutely that there was something funky going on when you got shot. Proof enough to show we’re all real, right?”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “It could be,” you agreed, nodding. “Thank you so much, Bruce, for your help tonight… and please thank Tony when he wanders back in, I’m sure you’ll see him before I do.”

Bruce smiled in his gentle, friendly manner. “Glad to help,” he said. “We’re all hoping to get this straightened out for you, the sooner the better.”

“Absolutely,” you agreed. “But I think it’s time I show Darcy to her room for the night, before she passes out on us.”

“It won’t be the first time someone knocked out in here,” Bruce said with a snort. “Though it’s usually just Tony after an engineering bender.”

 

By the time you got back to your own apartment, your feet were aching in your sensible heels and all you wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep for a week or two. It had been a long day; you’d known your first day back to work would take a lot out of you, but you hadn’t expected so many twists and turns, or to be wandering back into your door well after eleven that night.

The sight that greeted you made you smile. Steve was sprawled over the couch in the living room, half leaning against the arm, one leg on the cushions and the other on the carpeted floor. The television was on, illuminating him in flashes of blue and white in the darkened room, the volume turned down to barely a murmur. You knew he was away, eyes half-lidded and flicking your way as soon as you opened the door.

“There she is,” he said, voice relaxed and sleepy, even as a smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Hi, honey, I’m home,” you drawled, kicking off your shoes at the door. Your lab coat, which you only then realized you hadn’t taken off all day, was tossed over an armchair, and without even thinking about it or hesitating, you settled yourself on the couch with your back pressed to his chest, head cushioned on his shoulder.

Steve gave a pleased sigh, strong arms coming down to wrap around you. You would be perfectly content, you realized, just to stay there, laying against him, for all of your days. It was the kind of thing you’d only dreamed about in your other life -- not Steve himself, though you’d be remiss to say the handsome actor who played him hadn’t featured in a daydream or two, but the comfort and contentment of being completely surrounded by someone who you loved immensely, and who loved you in return.

It was something you’d never had before. You thought perhaps that was why it had been so difficult for you to understand, why you’d been searching for a reason for the intense feelings of affection you’d had for him, from the moment you’d opened your eyes into a world you barely could believe existed. You’d dated, of course, almost married a man you cared for a great deal, but you knew now that you’d never been _in_ love. It had never felt this way, this fierce and important. There wasn’t one single thing about Steve that you could put your finger on and say ‘this is it, this is why I love him’.

It was everything. It was every little thing, a million reasons or more, from the way he’d smile just to watch a squirrely skittering up a tree in the park to the way he always took the grilled cheese sandwiches he had accidentally burned and gave you the golden brown ones. It was the way he’d wake up in a good mood and sing loudly and off-key in the shower, laughing every time his voice broke on a high note he couldn’t reach. It was the way he would cry, unashamedly, every time you made him watch _Romeo + Juliet_ with you, the way you knew a small part of him always hoped that maybe this time, Romeo would see his Juliet’s eyelashes flutter. 

It was the way he waited for you, patiently, painfully, for _months_ , on the bare hope that you would remember him and love him again.

It was everything. It was everything he was and everything he wasn’t, all wrapped up in a sweet smile and a kind word and a warm embrace.

No matter where your life took you now, if one day you did wake up back in that hell of a life you had lived in another place, another world… you would always love him, and you would never find another like him.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about, beautiful?” Steve asked, pressing his lips to your temple.

You smiled. “Just how I love you so damn much,” you told him honestly, and he grinned.

“Believe me, Doc… the feeling is more than mutual,” he told you, and you felt his sigh and low exhale, the rise of his chest against your back strong enough to move you in its wake.

You yawned. “Darcy’s here,” you told him.

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, heard all about it from Bucky.”

“I thought they were a thing, you know? Just from what I can remember,” you explained. “I asked her and she said no.”

Steve sighed again; you could feel the sadness in this one, the way he seemed to deflate. “Yeah,” he agreed. You didn’t have to look to know there was concern in his eyes, or know that he was biting his lip; you knew his mannerisms so well now. “Not for lack of tryin’, from what I hear, but… you and me? We’re family. Bucky trusts us, trusts himself when he’s with us. His therapists want him to push his boundaries a little more, but he’s still afraid.”

“He thinks he’ll hurt her,” you said, filling in Steve’s unspoken words.

“He’s still half-terrified he’ll wake up one morning and find himself back comin’ out of cryo with Hydra,” Steve told you. “That everything we have here has just been a dream. I think bein’ with someone else, I think he’s worried it’d be all the worse if none of this was real after all.”

“Now that’s a feeling I know a little too well,” you said with a sigh, and turned over onto your side, snuggling against Steve’s chest.

“Oof,” he said, shifting a little beneath you. “Elbows, babydoll, elbows. Jesus.”

“I think you can take it,” you told him, and nudged a little harder. “Big strong super-soldier and all.”

“Mmhmm,” he told you, and suddenly his arms tightened around you, dragging you up and over to situate you a little more comfortably against him. “There. That’s better. But yeah, you were right. He’s afraid he’s going to hurt her, on top of all that. Accidentally get startled and react on reflex, or just lose himself again. It’s a rough go. I wish I knew how to fix it.”

“We just have to give him time,” you said, after a long moment. “Darcy isn’t giving up too easily, I can tell you that much.”

“Good,” Steve told you. The hand he had splayed across your waist slipped up a little further, drifting beneath the hem of your blouse to rest heavy and warm against your abdomen. You smiled to yourself at the move; no matter how you feel asleep, you’d awake to Steve touching you somewhere, as though he craved the skin to skin contact. You loved it. 

“Should we go to bed?” you asked.

Steve groaned. “I think I’d be good to stay right here,” he told you.

“You’ll be all stiff in the morning,” you warned, even as you pulled the blanket from the back of the couch down to cover you both. Natasha had knitted it, you suddenly remembered; it had been a wedding gift, surprisingly touching.

“Mmm, that’s all right,” Steve said. His hand searched out the remote control on the nearby coffee table and turned off the television. “You’ll just have to help me work out the kinks.”


	17. Chapter 17

It was difficult to get any decent work done when Darcy was in town. She was on vacation herself, and it seemed unfair that you spend all of the time she had used to come to see you locked away in your lab. There wasn’t much you could do on our pet project for the time being as it was; Bruce wanted to stagger your physical testing, as not to overtax your system oor interfere with the slow process of your natural memory recovery. Combined with the fatigue you had experienced on your first full day back in the lab after taking your own time off to spend with Steve, you made the decision to cut down to half days, at least for the time being.

The holidays were coming, anyway; the grant that funded your research allowed for you to put your technicians on salary, regardless of the hours they worked, so you knew they’d appreciate some extra time off.

That in itself was going to be interesting: navigating the holidays with Steve for the first time in your memory. You had a few flashes, of course: the one New Year’s Eve you had recalled early on, a Christmas spent at what you think might have been a private cabin, just the two of you, and of course, the five-turkey Thanksgiving.

It would be nice, you thought, to have all of that. To have holidays where you weren’t alone. In the life you remembered, it had been years since you’d even had someone to exchange a Christmas gift with. 

You said as much to Darcy and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t think this memory loss crap gets you out of getting me a Christmas present!” she warned, and you couldn’t stop the torrent of laughter it caused you.

Tony had insisted on a ‘gathering’, as he called it, a week or so after Darcy had arrived. You were hesitant to agree to any such thing, but he assured you it wouldn’t be an actual _party_ , just a group of friends and co-workers getting together for a few drinks.

“It’s not a party if you don’t cater,” he had declared -- and apparently he didn’t count ordering dozens of pizzas as catering.

“So,” Darcy said, leaning over the table towards you with a conspiratorial grin. “I know you moved back in with Steve, but are you two… ya know…?”

You rolled your eyes. “Really, Darc?” you asked.

“What?” she replied innocently. “Look, you’re married to a _super-soldier_. People get curious. And besides, you forced the man into a six month dry spell. You better be servin’ up the nookie.”

You blushed and snorted at her words, gaze dropping to the tabletop as you reached for your drink. You weren’t sure if Darcy realized that even though Steve was several feet away, chatting with Clint and Natasha, he more likely than not could hear every word she was saying -- and every response you gave. 

“Yes, Darcy, I am sleeping with my husband,” you told her dryly, and finished the rest of your drink, a relatively weak vodka cranberry that Tony had mixed for you himself. He and Bruce had asked you to limit any alcohol until they got a better handle on the trace gamma situation, and you asked him to use his judgment to make the drink. It barely gave a burn.

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Way to not answer the question,” she told you, shaking her head. “That’s what I get for hanging out with geniuses. Always trying to trick me with the word-play. Yes, I know, you’re sharing a bed and actually sleeping beside your husband. Jeez.”

You laughed softly. “Darcy, you’re my best friend and I love you, but you don’t need to know the details of my sex life.”

Darcy sipped at her own drink, some ridiculous fruity concoction that she had instructed Tony on how to make and no one had ever heard of before. You were fairly certain that she had been making it up as she went along; it couldn’t taste very good, with the way her sips from the straw were few and far between.

“I know, I know,” she grumbled, shaking her head. “Excuse me if I need to live vicariously through you! Not that it’d even be interesting. I mean, it’s _you_... and _Steve_... probably most vanilla couple _ever_.”

You glanced at her sharply. “Vanilla?” you repeated.

“You know, vanilla. Like boring, like…” Darcy started.

“I know what it means,” you replied evenly. You caught Steve’s gaze from where he still stood across the room; he had been watching the two of you the whole time. He had a bottle of beer raised halfway to his lips when your eyes met, and he gave you a quick raise of the eyebrow and the tiniest smirk to tell you he had indeed been listening the whole time.

Darcy had moved on, beginning an anecdote about Dr. Foster and a squirrely lab technician in Geneva who either had a crush on Jane herself, or on Thor -- they never could quite figure it out -- that led to a series of increasingly ridiculous accidents, but you were a million miles away. You swirled the melting ice cubes around the bottom of your glass, your cheeks burning, but not from the liquor.

 

It was a little past two in the morning when you and Steve made it back to your apartment. He’d been extremely tactile for much of the party, and you were certain it was because of what he had overheard. If you could even call it ‘overheard’; there was an accidental bend to the word, and you knew without a doubt that Steve had been eavesdropping on purpose. 

His hand was at your lower back when he guided you around the room, and he kept reaching to brush your hair out of your eyes, or dust a nonexistent speck of dust from your shoulder, bare in the sleeveless dress you had chosen to wear. When Steve got you another drink -- just a glass of water, per Tony’s suggestion, but with a twist of lime to make it interesting -- his long fingers had dragged across your knuckles as he handed it off. 

Even when you separated, moving around the lounge in Tony’s penthouse to socialize with the other guests, you could feel his gaze on you.

Watching. 

Wondering.

“That was fun,” you told him softly as he closed the bedroom door. You were waiting for him as he turned, your heels discarded at the foot of the bed, and you leaned up to kiss him just gently, bracing yourself with both hands on his chest. His arms circled your waist in an easy, comfortable gesture, and you smiled.

“It was,” he agreed, dropping another peck on your lips. “Did you have a good time catching up with Darcy?”

You hummed a happy sigh. “The best,” you told him, then slipped out of his arms to amble towards the bed.

He was still watching as you stopped at his usual side and reached down, underneath the bedclothes and into a tiny pocket sewn in beneath the mattress. The stitching was clumsy, but effective; you knew that because you had done it yourself. The strap you pulled out was soft and smooth as silk, the fabric a dusky shade of rose. Just by looking you knew that it extended two ways -- the end you pulled out and tossed on the bed, which unrolled almost to the middle, and stretching out beneath the mattress itself, to create a twin on the other side.

The weight of the bed, of the bodies atop the mattress, would hold it in place. The edges near the end were frayed and wrinkled, from being tied into knots, whenever you felt the need. You were still staring down at it when Sidled up behind you, one strong arm slipping around your waist.

“Vanilla?” he asked in a low, teasing voice.

You smirked, eyes still on the strap. You’d tried other things in the past -- there had been leather, cuffs, even metal, but Steve didn’t like the way they’d leave welts on your wrists if he got carried away. You hadn’t minded it yourself, but he hated the idea that he could hurt you in any way. He’d chosen the silk: soft, but strong. You could hardly disagree.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” you said, closing your eyes when you felt his lips pressed to your shoulder. “Mmm… she can think what she wants.”

You’d never tell Darcy about the straps. Or about the floor to ceiling window drapes you like to open sometimes, daring the world to peek inside. Or the large, blocky entertainment center with latched wooden doors across from the bed that you’d just assumed held a television; you never liked having a tv in the bedroom and you’d wondered at why it was there, when Steve didn’t seem to bother with it. Now, you remembered; if you opened the doors, you’d see a full length mirror.

That one had been Steve's own idea. _I want you to see how gorgeous you look, baby_.

Vanilla. Sure.

“Need you, baby,” Steve whispered, voice thick with want. “Need you so bad.”

And really, far be it for you to deny him anything.


	18. Chapter 18

“Oh my god, you’re such a creep,” you groaned as you opened your eyes, giving Steve a playful shove. It wasn’t the first time you’d woken to find him watching you, and you’d been teasing him about it each time you did.

Steve smiled softly and reached to smooth your hair back from your face. “Can’t help myself, Doc,” he told you. “Just about makes my day, wakin’ up to you bein’ here with me.”

You shuffled a little closer beneath your blankets, knowing you’d never be able to hide the pleased smile that his words had drawn out. There was something so perfect to these quiet mornings with Steve: slow and relaxed and so very happy. Sundays, Steve had reasoned, very soon after you had begun spending the night with him, were days best spent in bed, for as long as you could manage it. It was a rule you had very much enjoyed reinstating once you’d moved back home with him.

“You sap,” you grumbled, still grinning, and buried your face against his chest. He gave a pleased groan and wrapped an arm around you, keeping you close.

“That’s what you like best about me,” he countered.

“Nope,” you said, voice muffled. “I’m only in it for the sex.”

“Oh, good, so it’s not just me then,” Steve replied, skating his fingertips down your side to reach every ticklish spot he could find until you burst into a fit of giggles. You reached to return the favor, finding each sensitive spot without any thought, the familiarity of Steve’s body so ingrained in your mind that even without a memory to attach it to, you knew he’d jump if you went for his abdomen, and laugh and try and squirm away if you got him behind the knee. 

It quickly erupted into a full-on tickle fight that you just as quickly lost; you might have been smaller and least somewhat quick, but you certainly didn’t have Steve’s strength or reflexes. In just a few minutes, he had you on your back, hands pinned above you head; it would have been even quicker than that if it had been serious.

“Well now,” he said with a slow grin. “Isn’t this a pretty picture?”

You huffed a short laugh, still panting a little from your exertion. “Didn’t get enough of it last night?” you said, flicking your fingers against the silken strap which still lay stretched across the top of the bed.

Steve kissed you then, sweet and slow. “Never,” he said, voice whisper soft. “It’ll never be enough for me, darlin’. I could spend my next fifty years right here in this bed with your wrapped up in my arms and it’d _never _be enough.”__

__Only Steve could take such a flirtatious moment and make it so very sweet. You had to kiss him then, soft and chaste, smiling when you felt him sigh against your lips and his grip on your wrists loosening. He rolled onto his side, letting an arm drift down to your waist to pull you along with him, tangling his legs in yours to keep you close and warm._ _

__“Sweet talker,” you told him, and he smiled._ _

__“You’re the only one who’s ever accused me of that, Doc,” he told you with a boyish grin in return. You’d left the curtains open the night before and the sunlight streaming in backlit Steve as he smiled at you, his whole face awash in gold. It barely seemed real._ _

__You pushed that thought away and reached above his head, taking the other side of the strap in hand and bringing the wrinkled, tatted edge down to tickle his nose until he laughed._ _

__“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked._ _

__“What, about this?” Steve asked, taking the strap in hand to toss it away before reaching for your wrist. It was a little pink, not bruised but still showing the signs of your play; Steve had taken care of you the night before, making sure you hadn’t been hurt and doing all he could to soothe the soreness you barely felt. “Doc, you didn’t even believe I was real, remember? Can you imagine that conversation? ‘Yeah, sweetheart, I know you think I’m just a comic book hero but I swear, we got itched and sometimes you let me tie you up and have my wicked way with you’.”_ _

__You snorted. “It was my idea,” you reminded. “I know that much. It’s the kind of thing I… she… the other one, she would fantasize about. But never felt comfortable enough asking for. I’m glad I trusted you enough to ask.”_ _

__Steve chuckled. “You don’t remember?” he asked. “Honestly, at first, I thought you were just tryin’ to make me feel better when you brought it up.”_ _

__You frowned, straining the capacity of your limited memory in search of something, anything that could give you an inkling of what he meant. You hated that you had gaps in memory like this; you wanted everything, every smile, every argument, every kiss, and every word passed between you. You wanted it all back, your life with Steve and all that it had been, what it meant to you, to him; you were given a gift, you thought, having this second chance of sorts. But you were greedy for it, not satisfied with a half-life that left so much up in the air between you._ _

__You wanted Steve, completely. You wanted your life back._ _

__“Tell me,” you said quietly, settling yourself close against his chest and closing your eyes. “Please, Steve. Tell me everything.”_ _

__Steve gave a short chuckle. “It’s not the greatest memory for me, doll,” he told you, then sighed. You knew he wouldn’t deny you anything you asked for._ _

__“I’d just come home. We’d been out on a mission, it took a little longer than expected and we didn’t have a set time to be back,” he began. “It wasn’t anything rough… diplomatic bullshit, mostly… so you didn’t have to worry about me and you were working when I got home. I didn’t want to bother you.”_ _

__“You can always bother me,” you scolded softly._ _

__Steve pressed his lips to the top of your head. “I know that now,” he agreed. “You told me that then too.”_ _

__You gave a pleased hum and kissed him on the chest in response. “Good,” you said. “Then what happened?”_ _

__“Well I…” Steve started, then paused to huff a laugh. “I’d been away for _weeks_ , doll. I get home, I get cleaned up, I’m half-exhausted from the flight back -- swear to God, Sam and Buck would not _shut up_ with the bickering the whole way home -- and then I finally get home to bed, and…”_ _

__“And?” you pressed curiously, peeking one eye open to see him. His cheeks had gone pleasantly pink, spreading down to his chest. It made you smile; this Steve, _your_ Steve, was so much more than the cartoonish version that often came out in the films you still remembered, from his faint blushes down to his freckled chest. _ _

__“Baby, it smelled like you in here,” he breathed. “Your perfume, your soap, your shampoo, your…” he paused again, blush deepening. “Just… _you_. And it had been so long since I’d so much as laid a finger on your, and I… I…”_ _

__You giggled. “You were turned on,” you filled in, and Steve groaned._ _

__“Can you blame me?” he asked, laughing in a self-deprecating fashion. “Just home, dead on my feet, then surrounded by everything that reminded me of my best girl? I couldn’t help myself.”_ _

__“And I caught you!” you practically squealed in triumph, the memory coming flooding back._ _

__You’d left your phone in the apartment and decided to leave the lab early, just in case Steve had tried to contact you since that morning. You’d smiled to see his boots on the floor by the door, but raised an eyebrow at the muffled sounds coming from the bedroom. He’d been so tired and caught up in what he was doing that he didn’t even hear you approach, panicking only when you opened the bedroom door and found him with one hand in his shorts and the other hand holding a tablet._ _

__“And you were watching…” you started, grinning up at him._ _

__“Yeah, yeah, a stag film, I remember,” Steve replied, blush deepening as he spoke. “I was so embarrassed but you kept saying it was okay, that it was…”_ _

__“Actually kinda hot,” you filled in, trying not to grin that he still called it a ‘stag film’, like he couldn’t even say the word ‘porn’, at least not to you._ _

__And it had been. Steve had gotten a deer-in-headlights expression and yanked the blankets up to cover himself, as though you hadn’t seen; the tablet had fallen from his hand and you’d smiled, kicked off your shoes, and slid into bed beside him._ _

__You had righted the tablet -- playing a mildly cheesy video of two women, each wearing far too much makeup to cover their age to be even slightly believable as the ‘babysitters’ the title insisted upon -- and started kissing his neck. You’d find him better videos next time, but for now, this would do._ _

__“Don’t stop,” you had whispered into his ear. “I want to see. Show me.”_ _

__A few hours later, you’d had a frank discussion that had Steve blushing deeply but speaking openly about your sex life for the first time in your relationship. It wasn’t exactly that sex embarrassed him; you knew better than to think him some blushing virgin, and you’d heard some of the filthy jokes that he traded with Bucky and the others when he thought you weren’t around. It wasn’t about the subject -- it was _you_. Some part of Steve would always hold you up on that little pedestal, keeping you safe from the rude and the vulgar, as he’d always been taught as a young man._ _

__You did your best to put him at ease. You told him what you liked, what you fantasized about, and he’d shared his own, though it took some time to draw it out of him._ _

__The straps had been your idea, but Steve had taken to it with relish. The windows, the mirror… that had been Steve. And, you suddenly knew, the neat plastic bin beneath the bed and it’s quarry of toys and paddles, those had been joint decisions._ _

__“I can’t believe you put me through that whole talk again,” Steve groaned, and you’d laughed, rolling away from him and onto your back. You knew exactly what he would be needing._ _

__As if on cue, Steve followed you, pressing his burning cheeks to your breast and letting your arms slip around him, holding him close. He closed his eyes and you knew he was listening to the beat of your heart._ _

__“I know it was rough for you, baby,” you told him, reaching one hand to run your fingers through his hair. It was getting long again; you hope he wouldn’t cut it. “Thank you for going through it all again for me. You gave it back to me -- the memory.”_ _

__“Anything for you, Doc,” Steve mumbled with a sigh, already drifting back to sleep. “Anything you want to remember about us, you just ask.”_ _


	19. Chapter 19

It became something of a game between the two of you. In quiet moments, when you’d notice the tiniest hint of a smile on his face and you knew he was remembering something that was still just out of reach for you, you would ask.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Sometimes it was simple and silly.

“Last time we tried making dinner together, we got into a flour fight. You put a flour handprint right across my face and called me an Uruk-hai. I forgot it was there and we went to grab a drink up in the common lounge with Tony. Didn’t hear the end of that one for _months_.”

Sometimes it broke your heart that you couldn’t remember it.

“This is where we first kissed. I was so nervous… Never had much luck with girls, you know. Thought it was just as likely as you’d duck away from me. But then I looked at you and you just had this perfect smile… like you knew I was gonna go for it. Like you wanted me to. And then I did, and... it was like you just melted into my arms. Like you’d always belonged there.”

Sometimes… the _best_ times… you’d be able to finish the story.

“Bucky’d eat us out of house had home if we let him,” Steve mused one night as you tore into a new package of Oreos. “Once, you were making those little cinnamon cookies for me…”

“Snickerdoodles?” you offered, snuggling up close to Steve on the couch.

“Yeah, those!” Steve agreed. “You’d made like three dozen, all for me, and while they were still cooling, Bucky…”

“Came in and ate more than half of them, plus drank all the milk in the fridge!” you filled in, remembering it clearly. You’d tried so hard to be mad at him; but as much as Bucky had acclimated to his life in the Tower, there was still a lot he needed to work out and it seemed that often there was very little that he would take for himself. It might have been a selfish moment for him but you’d been so glad for him to have one, you couldn’t be angry.

Shuri might have helped Bucky to reclaim his self, to remove the danger of becoming a puppet to someone else’s will ever again, but he still had a ways to go to learn to be human again. But he was finding his way back, bit by by.

You’d bake him dozens and dozens of cookies if it helped. 

You hadn’t even realized you were crying as you told Steve all that you remembered -- crying for Bucky, for what he had been through and how far he had come, and crying for the memory you had recovered.

Steve held you close for the rest of the night and you talked a little about Bucky, about the memories you had gotten back, and the ones you still hadn’t found again. There was still a lot -- gaps in your history with Steve that you desperately wanted filled -- but you were trying hard not to take on too much all at once.

 

Darcy had to leave a week or so before Halloween, but promised to be back for Christmas; Jane had been “off-world”, as she had termed it, but was home again and needed her right hand back at work. You were sad to see her go, but you understood; the world you lived in now was strange and very, very busy. Dr. Foster was brilliant but Darcy seemed to temper her more capricious whims and you were glad they worked so well together. 

You’d made the executive decision that you and Steve would have matching costumes for Tony’s ridiculous masquerade, and were still sourcing the perfect accessories online. You’d always wanted to do that, to attend a party wearing a couples costume with your significant other, but it had never worked out. You were taking advantage of the opportunity as it had presented itself this time around.

Steve’s amused expression at your fervent search for just the right white fedora for his planned costume had you certain that this couldn’t be the first such search.

You smiled at him from where you sat on the couch, laptop at the ready and feet propped up on the coffee table.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” you said, and Steve grinned, quickly settling down beside you on the couch and commandeering your laptop.

“We keep our photos on a private drive that Tony set up for us,” he explained, maneuvering towards a cloud storage applet you hadn’t even noticed on you desktop. You watched his large hands fly over the keyboard with practiced ease and it made you smile, wondering if he’d ever have thought that one day, typing would be a second nature to him.

He made a point to display the drive password as he logged in, winking at you when you caught his gaze after seeing that it was your anniversary date.

“Let’s see, Halloween…” he muttered, flipping quickly through file folders until he came upon the right one.

The first photo made you erupt in laughter: you were a devil, and Steve was an angel. The memory was there, but just barely; you hadn’t been officially dating very long and Steve had been nervous about asking you to one of Tony’s events, but he’d managed to get past it.

“All things considered,” he had told you, “I’d rather get shot down asking, than spend the night mopin’ around on my own.”

You hadn’t had very much time to come up with costumes and a lot of it you’d had to whip up on your own. Steve was in a white t-shirt and jeans with a pair of too small feathery wings on his shoulders, and a halo made from a headband, a piece of wire, and tinfoil. You’d slathered a bit of silvery body glitter on his cheeks for good measure. You’d worn a pair of horns and a tail you’d gotten in a pack together at a drugstore, and a red dress that was a little tighter and a little shorter than you’d strictly been comfortable with. You were both grinning like fools at the camera.

The next one was a little more thought-out, clearly a packaged pair of costumes you had bought somewhere for the event. You were both dressed as pirates; you’d gone so far as to sponge paint stubble on Steve’s cheeks, as he’d been clean-shaven at the time. You were sitting on Steve’s lap in the photo, clearly more comfortable than the previous year but still grinning up a the camera.

There were three more: Mary Poppins and Bert the chimney sweep -- you remembered sponging the dirt on his face, getting distracted by the way his lips seeks to catch your wrist every time you leaned in until you were giggling and he got you onto your back on the carpet, and you had to wash all of the excess makeup off of your face and neck, then a sailor and a mermaid -- Steve looking sweet and boyish in the vintage navy uniform you’d found, and then last year’s, Westley and Buttercup from _The Princess Bride_. Steve looked extra dashing in Westley’s black Dread Pirate Roberts gear; he’d made a point to grow the mustache to complete the look.

You were about to tell him that it wouldn’t hurt to let his facial hair grow in now and again when you suddenly frowned and counted the photos he had shown you. There were only five; you’d been together with Steve for six years total, and married for three of them.

“There’s only five,” you murmured, noting immediately the way Steve’s open expression turned carefully guarded and his head dropped just slightly. “Why are there only five?”

“It’s a little… it’s a little complicated,” Steve started slowly. He watched you a moment, taking in the confusion on your face, and was about to speak again when your eyes suddenly widened in horror.

“You left me!” you blurted out.


	20. Chapter 20

“No!” Steve said quickly, shaking his head. There was a manic sense to his voice, hands in the air as if claiming innocence. “No, I swear to god, Doc, I didn’t, it wasn’t like that!”

You shook your head. “You _left_ me!” you repeated, the memory sudden, sharp, and piercing. The tears were falling without your control or even notice. That was the problem with amnesia, you reasoned. The desperate need to have your memories restored always made you forget the inherent danger.

Some memories had teeth.

“Not willingly,” Steve amended quickly. “Not by choice, baby, I’d never. I’d never leave you, not unless you turned me out. It just… it was a complicated situation, and I…”

You shook your head and stood, pacing the room. You were hurt and agitated, reliving the experience all over again as it came back to you.

Waking alone. 

No note. No phone call or text message to allay your concerns.

It hadn’t been the first time that Steve had to run out on a mission in the middle of the night and it certainly hadn’t been the last since, but it was the only time he had failed to return without giving you any idea of where he had gone and when he’d be home.

You’d been dating for two years by then and it was a serious as it could be, short of a key or a ring. You knew the former would be coming soon; you hadn’t spent a night alone in months, Steve staying at your apartment most nights or the two of you crashing at Steve’s place in the Tower when something held you at work late or you attended some sort of function there. And then, radio silence. You felt almost as though you were being ghosted -- until that Saturday morning, three days after Steve had disappeared, when government agents raided your apartment while you were making yourself a bowl of cereal.

They were looking for him, they said. You were a ‘known associate’ of one Steven G. Rogers, alias Captain America, who was currently the sole suspect in a series of violent, racist attacks within the city. They had him on CCTV, they told you. They had him dead to rights.

“Maybe something in the old boy finally snapped,” the smarmy FBI agent had drawled. They’d dragged you to their field office in your pajamas, accessorized by a shiny pair of handcuffs; you were being questioned as a material witness to Steve’s whereabouts. 

They didn’t believe you that you didn’t know.

“Or maybe,” the agent crooned, flipping his chair around to sit it in it backwards, “Maybe he just isn’t the friendliest guy after all, huh? Guy grew up in segregation, right? Wouldn’t be too much of a shocker if old Mr. Rogers had a little problem with…”

“You do realize that _Captain_ Rogers is an outspoken advocate against racism and bigotry in any form, right?” you told him, not hiding your disgust as you spoke. 

The agent shrugged. “Everyone likes to play nice for the cameras, but we know better than to believe that, don’t we? Any kind of guy who is best buds with a terrorist…”

“Sergeant Barnes was summarily cleared of all charges of terrorism and war crimes,” you responded, rage burning white hot in your veins.

“Oh sure,” the agent replied. “The good ol’ boys club, I get it. Doesn’t mean a couple of old timers like that can’t be bigots on the down low.”

You rolled your eyes. “You are wasting your time. I don’t know where he is, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Now get me the hell out of here or get me my lawyer immediately.”

They let you go -- they had to. If they had bothered to even show you the supposed videos they had of Steve shaking down minority businesses and beating up the owners, you could have told them without question it wasn’t him. Sure, the face was right, in a way; it was definitely his bland, impassive poster-boy expression, because that was where it had been copied from. There was no emotion there at all, no anger, no glee. Anyone who knew Steve would have known it was all wrong.

And then there was the body. Steve had a distinctive shape to his body, broad shoulders and a trim waist; whoever it was they had in their videos had a generic bulky bodybuilder figure. Steve ran with a certain straightness to his back that no one could ever duplicate properly; the man that had been caught on camera had a hunched, hurried gait. 

Someone had taken his face and done these awful things, and that’s when you realized it: Steve wasn’t on a mission anymore, he was on the run.

And he had left you behind.

 

“You _left_ me!” you said again, voice just above a whisper. Steve took you in his arms and held you in a tight embrace.

You had been so angry at him when you figured it out, bad feeling growing by the day. It was a a full two months after your brush with the FBI that finally Tony gave you some idea of what was happening.

“FRIDAY monitors most governmental channels,” Tony had explained. “We heard word coming down the wire that the feds were looking for Cap and ready to issue a warrant. He was already overseas for that Hydra-wannabe start-up in Bremen with Barnes, we just redirected their ride home out to safer territory.”

You had glared at him. “And none of you thought to inform me?”

Tony sighed and pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah that was… that was an oversight,” he admitted, and you erupted.

“An _oversight_?!” you snapped. “For god’s sake, Tony, Steve and I practically live… _lived_ together and not one of you people saw it fit to tell me… I mean, my god, I thought you were my _friends_!”

Tony looked cowed for maybe the second time since you had met him. “We’re a pretty insular group,” he said, frowning a little to himself. “I don’t think anyone expected to bring someone new into the fold and we didn’t really plan for… contingencies.”

You crossed your arms and glared. “Great. Thanks. I’m an anomaly in your friendship group. Fantastic. Can you at least tell me where Steve _is_ and if he plans on coming back?”

“Wakanda,” Tony said, turning back to the computer display he had been working with. “We’ve worked out that there was infiltration into the FBI by one of these alt-right groups…”

“Nazis,” you corrected, and Tony nodded.

“Nazis,” he agreed. “We’re certain they’re behind the attacks. There have been seven more since Steve went into hiding… which he hates, by the way, but we can’t have him in the states until we get this mess cleared up.”

“You’ve spoken to him,” you said flatly, and Tony winced but didn’t turn back to face you. You hated how small your voice sounded when you asked, “Did he even ask about me?”

“He asked that we keep you safe,” Tony replied and frowned at the screen, which was displaying video of one of the attacks. He cleared his throat. “We’re getting closer to nailing these bastards and as soon as we do…”

You stood, shaking your head. “It’s none of my business,” you replied airily. You turned quickly, hiding the hot tears spilling down your cheeks, and did your best to control your voice. “After all, I’m just the hired help around here.”

“Doc…” Tony started, but you ignored him and made for the door.

“If you talk to him again, you tell him… you tell him I’ve got no cause to wait for someone who doesn’t think it’s important to let me know when he’s about to disappear,” you said, and stalked back to your lab, promptly sending your technicians home for the day and crying your eyes out in your office.

You lied, of course. You did wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually, fake-Steve stopped publicly attacking people; instead it became fake-Clint for a time, before the others were able to find them and shut them down. They had been using face-morphing technology to imitate public figures in hopes to turn public opinion to their cause or, at the least, take their most vocal adversaries out of the game. 

Steve came home to a very public, very formal apology by the FBI, issued to both him and Clint. He didn’t stay long at the press conference, going instead to wait outside the apartment door you refused to open for three days. 

He waited. Talked to you through the door when you wouldn’t let him in and slipped notes beneath it when you refused to respond, scribbled on the back of hallway detritus, scrap pieces of junk mail and takeout menus. The last one simply read “Please. I love you”, and that was what did it -- what finally broke you.

You opened the door and Steve was still sat there against the wall, looking tired and stubbled, eyes rimmed red.

“Never again,” you told him, even as you started to cry. “Don’t you ever do anything like this again, Steve, I mean it, I swear to god…”

“Never,” he agreed, standing up on stiff legs to pull you into a tight embrace. “I promise, I promise, I promise…”

 

He was breathing those words into your hair now, holding you close and tight, as if willing you to believe him. You remembered it now; there was a go-bag for each of you in your bedroom closet, with cash and clothes and burner phones, and an authentic Wakandan passport in each of your names. 

“Never,” Steve whispered. “Never, baby, I’ll never leave you again, I promise. I promise.”

The best part was that you believed him.


	21. Chapter 21

You changed your plans for Halloween after that. You weren’t angry at Steve, not really. The real anger had passed long ago, but there was something remaining behind after you’d recovered the memory that made you feel a little prickly. Your original idea had been to dress Steve in a pinstripe suit and have him carry a plastic tommy-gun as a 1920’s era gangster, with you dressed as his flapper moll in a silver fringed dress. It gave you a little tickle to change the design for the night: you put Steve into an old-school striped prisoner’s outfit, and dressed yourself in an overly revealing cop get-up. 

Steve spent much of the night laughing at his friends’ gentle ribbing, and the other half watching you in your fishnets and miniskirt with handcuffs linked to your belt, eyes dark and hungry.

You _really_ enjoyed the holiday.

The episode had brought forth a small stream of less than happy memories, not just of your life with Steve but the years prior. Your home life, it seemed, had been much the same: your father in the wind at a young age, your mother’s drinking, moving from one crappy apartment to another. It had all been much the same. Even the fiance that had jilted you for your former best friend, it had all been the same.

But you hadn’t run to San Diego then, though the offer had been there. You’d had a different offer, a better one -- a grant to work for Stark Industries. You’d taken that instead, and it had set your life on an entirely different course. No lonely California apartment, no boring days and empty nights. Here you had friends, you had love.

It’s a pity, you thought, that in the other life, the one you knew best, none of this even existed.

You kept asking, though. Steve was more than forthcoming over anything you questioned him over, and seemed happy to share some of his favorite memories with you, even more delighted when you were able to fill in the blanks.

“Why me?” you asked him one night, curled together on the couch again as an early November snow began falling outside. You loved this about your life -- that nights with Steve weren’t full of exhausting parties or sudden runs out to fight a war; there were still days when he had to leave you but they weren’t nearly as often as you might have imagined, and he was such a homebody.

You _loved_ it.

Steve had been gently dozing but he’d heard your question, and he tightened his arm over your shoulders. “Whassat?” he mumbled, and you laughed.

“I’ll ask you again tomorrow,” you told him, and kissed him on the tip of his nose.

Steve closed his eyes and drew in a sigh, opening them fully after a moment, more awake than before. “No, I want to know. What did you ask?”

“I said, why me?” you reiterated, and when Steve frowned, you continued. “I’ve seen the women who flock to you, Steve. They’re beautiful. Almost perfect. Even the ones who became your friends… Natasha, Wanda, Maria… they’re _stunning_. And then there’s me…”

“Yeah, there’s you,” Steve agreed, nodding. “The woman I love.”

You smiled; you couldn’t help it. “But why me?” you said again. “You could have had literally anyone in the world, and you picked me.”

Steve shook his head. “No, Doc. _You_ picked _me_. I’m still the same guy I was all those years ago, not knowin’ when to shut my mouth when it came to a bully but not really able to talk when it came to a girl that caught my eye. I’d never’ve had the nerve to take up with Peggy if she hadn’t been so forward. But it was different with you.

“I could talk to you. I mean, I saw you and I thought… I just thought ‘wow’. ‘Look at her’. I expected to clam up just like always, say or do something stupid without meanin’ it, but you… you _smiled_ at me, and the words just came. You made me feel like I’d known you my whole life, and you made me want to know you a whole lot better. Never thought I’d get to call you mine… God knows I dreamed about it from the second I set eyes on you.

“I never let myself stop and ask why, or wonder what you saw in me. It’ll just have me going crazy, running circles in my own head. I won’t ask why. I’m only god damn thankful that I get to love you.”

You fell asleep there on the couch, Steve holding you close and the snow still falling on a muted city outside your window. It had happened so many times before -- some that you remembered, some that you didn’t -- that you realized it was something of a routine for you both. The closeness and the comfort so dear to your heart that you’d be content to have this, only this, for the rest of your days.

 

In the early morning hours, when the two of you peeled yourselves off the couch to head to your bed, you found yourself wondering as you stripped out of the jeans you wore the night before and reached for a nightgown. The cabinet doors that concealed the mirror across from your bed were slightly ajar and you had the thought that there might be other important things you still hadn’t remembered.

Steve, who never wasted an opportunity when he saw you pulling off clothing, was stood behind you, one large warm hand creeping around your midsection.

“We don’t have to go right back to sleep, do we?” he whispered, and you smiled and twisted in his embrace.

“Later,” you said quietly. “But I need you to tell me something.”

Steve pouted. “Later?” he repeated, and you nodded.

“Promise,” you told him. 

Steve sighed, but didn’t relinquish his grip. “If you insist,” he agreed. “What do you want to know?”

“Is there anything else I forgot?” you asked him. “Anything important? Anything that might scare me or surprise me or just anything, anything that was important to me, to _us_ , that I need to know?”

He stared at you for a long moment, and then nodded. “One thing,” he agreed, and turned to pad towards your nightstand. You followed curiously; you’d made a point of searching through all the drawers and cabinets in the house, looking for something, anything that could spark a memory. All that you recalled seeing in the nightstand drawer were a few paperback novels, a small notebook or two, and a few loose pens.

When Steve reached in and retrieved a small leather-case booklet, you vaguely recognized it, thinking it had been an old checkbook register. You hadn’t paid it any mind, more interested in the notebooks and what clues to your past you might have written down. Steve sat down on the bed and looked up at you, patting the mattress beside him so you would sit. You took your place and he opened the booklet for you to see.

There was a calendar inside, with notations on specific days in your handwriting. Most was done in blue pen, but there were other marks inside, the name ‘Helen’ written down in a very specific pattern. Your eyes widened in recognition.

“Oh,” you said quietly.

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“How long?” you pressed; the calendar had only a few weeks filled in.

“Not very,” he told you, voice soft and a little wistful. “It was… it was a rough decision and you wanted to be sure, wanted both of us to be sure… we talked a long time, and then…”

“Then I went to Helen,” you said, little traces of the memory coming back in flashes.

“You did,” Steve agreed. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I didn’t want to worry you or… it just seemed like it would be too much.”

You turned to him and you smiled. “It’s not,” you said. You reached up to cradle his face with one hand, and Steve automatically nuzzled into your touch. “I think we can call it ‘later’ now,” you added, closing your eyes when Steve laid gentle kisses on your palm and wrist.

You’d speak to Helen later. For now… now, you could have this.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Discussion of family planning.

You took a few days before you decided to actually go and speak with Helen. It was a sensitive subject; it felt oddly invasive to address when you could only remember bits and pieces. 

That was the most frustrating part. You loved looking at the photos Steve had shown you, exploring all of the different files and folders, seeing the scraps of this life that you couldn’t recall, but it all felt so eerie. You saw your own face smiling back at you, your own eyes staring out from the screen, but it didn’t _feel_ like you, when you had no memory to connect to the image.

Six years with Steve, six years of different hairstyles and vacations and memories and laughter and so much still outside of your graps. The rest of your life -- growing up, growing older -- you would gladly go without it, if you could only remember these past six years completely. The life you had made here, with Steve, with the friends you’d made, it was worth a life of empty memories just to have it all back.

But you remembered some things, important things. Steve’s eyes lit up every time you could fill in the blanks before he explained something from your past and he practically glowed with joy when you could volunteer a memory or a habit without his help. That’s what you wanted most -- for Steve to be happy. 

That is why you forced yourself to go to Helen’s office after your own staff had left for the day. It was only a little past four in the afternoon and you knew that Helen would be working on notes for her day’s work until five or so. 

You rapped on her open office door with your knuckles. “Do you have a moment?” you asked quietly, and she looked up in surprise.

“Are you unwell?” she asked, gesturing for you to come inside.

You shook your head, closing the door behind you before taking a seat in one of the two chairs that sat across from her desk.

“I think we have some things to talk about,” you told her, eyes dropping to your hands in your lap. You sighed. “I don’t understand why we were never friends, Helen. We moved in the same circles all through school and it wasn’t a competition, not really. We were in completely different fields.”

“There was a competition,” she replied slowly. “The Dean’s List. The Governor’s Award. Scholarships. Journal articles. It always came down to the two of us.”

You smiled, a few scattered memories surfacing. “You always won, in the end,” you reminded. “All of them. First to print in any journal, scooping up every award. Your work was grounded in the real world -- you had real results that could be applied to real, physical problems. All of mine was hypothetical. You won, and you deserved it.”

Helen gave a short laugh, amused but bitter. “But they always invited you, too. Every ceremony, every banquet. If I was valedictorian, you were salutatorian. And they always liked your speech better.”

You frowned. “It’s not your fault you’re shy,” you said, remembering a candid conversation with one of the Board of Governor’s trustees during your undergrad.

“Perhaps you should give the speech at the awards dinner,” the man had said, patting you on the arm. “Miss Cho is well-deserving of speaking on her accomplishments but I’m afraid she doesn’t perform well in this situations. Too dry. Too quiet. We do need some large scale donors for the new arts building.”

You cocked your head to the side. “It made you nervous. Speaking in front of the crowds.”

Helen frowned. “It was always so easy for you. They’d hand me a trophy or certificate, take a few photos, and then they’d take _you_ around to meet donors and trustees. They didn’t even know I was there.”

“And then we both end up here,” you said quietly. You hadn’t realized -- the you that was, or the you that you had come -- how it must have bothered her. “You tried to be a part of the crowd here but things went wrong. Not your fault… just happenstance, and you stayed away after that. And then Steve came to my lab.”

Helen leaned back in her chair. “Just like always,” she said. “I do the work, but you’re in the limelight. Unless someone is hurt, it seems like everyone forgets I’m here. I should have stayed in Seoul.”

“We never forgot you,” you told her, the memories becoming clearer the longer you spoke to her. “Me and Steve. We asked you over a dozen times and you never came. And you were the first one we came to see when we decided to start a family.”

Helen smiled, a small, tired thing. You were struck with a sudden memory -- not an event, no, but a simple fact that came to mind: Helen loved babies. There were pictures on her desk of her nieces and nephews, infants and toddlers, constantly being updated as more snapshots came in the mail.

That little crack in her professional facade was quickly covered and her expression went neutral as she nodded.

“There were some concerns regarding the serum,” she filled in, knowing instinctively that you hadn’t been able to fill in all of the blanks on the situation. “We’ve never been certain if the fundamental changes made to his physical form also altered the genes he was able to pass on. The simplest way to test that would be obtaining a sample, but…”

“Oh,” you said, laughing softly at the sudden memory. “He was so embarrassed when you brought it up, he turned red as a tomato.”

Helen allowed herself a small smile. “He was,” she agreed. “We discussed the pros and cons, and settled on the thought that it would be best if we did _not_ have any of his genetic material on file. No samples, no genome mapping, none of it. There are still people out there wanting to recreate the serum and we -- the Captain, Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner, myself, all of us -- thought it best that it not be something readily available. It could be catastrophic if it fell into the wrong hands.”

You thought for a moment of Bucky, of what he had gone through; his version of the serum was incomplete, and the testing done on him, the repeated trials of new drugs and new methods of activating the serum in his blood, it had been Hell. The mere thought that someone could infiltrate the Tower’s stronghold was terrifying, but not out of the realm of possibility. You had once thought SHIELD to be infallible -- everyone had -- and you’d been proven wrong. And if anyone had even an inkling of how to replicate the serum, some other poor soul could go through the same torture that Bucky suffered. It was unthinkable.

“It wasn’t just concern for the health of a possible child,” you spoke up with sudden realization. “We were concerned about _me_.”

Helen nodded. “Even an unremarkable fetus can implant improperly and cause harm to the mother,” she explained. “There have been many unfortunate cases where a fetus attached at the wrong point in the uterine wall and, as it grew and gained movement, accidentally detached itself, dying almost instantly and causing severe hemorrhaging in the mother. If the fetus was growing to have the Captain’s enhanced strength, even the early stages of fetal movement could prove damaging. It wasn’t a risk either of you wanted to take.”

“I was coming to see you every two weeks,” you pointed out. “You must have come up with a treatment.”

“Blood transfusions,” Helen said bluntly. “The Captain is has blood type O with a negative RF. That’s the universal blood type. We’ve been taking his blood, running it through the centrifuge, and then transfusing it into you. It’s probably what saved your life after you were shot. You healed very quickly, not the same rate as we see in the Captain but enough so that we had you back in our own bed less than a day after surgery.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Platelet-rich plasma?” you asked. “I’d never have thought of that.”

Helen’s smile was more genuine this time. “That’s why you came to me,” she reminded you.


	23. Chapter 23

Steve was glad to be home when he finally made it through your apartment door. Some days he found he would much prefer to be out in the field, dodging bullets and even taking bad falls if he had to, rather than suffering through meetings and briefings all day long. The bureaucratic red-tape had been significantly reduced in the days after the fall of SHIELD, but such meetings were still a necessity at times.

It wasn’t the kind of work that Steve felt he was cut out for; it exhausted him.

He slipped out of his shoes at the door, shedding the sweater he’d word to fend off the recent chill in the air and tossing it over the back of an armchair in the living room. He paused there and stretched, the muscles of his back tight and aching from a day bent over paperwork and sitting in uncomfortable boardroom seating. He yawned even as he listened for your presence, the clinking of cutlery in the kitchen giving you away.

“Babydoll?” he called, following the sound in stocking feet. “What are you up to?”

You turned and smiled, stirring a wooden spoon in stainless steel bowl. “You’ve had dinner already, right?” you asked; it was well after eight in the evening, and Tony most certainly would have ordered in if hey were going to be kept that late.e

Steve nodded and leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest as he eyed you curiously. 

“I went to see Helen today,” you said, moving to rest your bowl on the counter. You set it down and wiped your hands on a clean dish towel, then walked towards him, leaning up on your tiptoes to press a soft kiss on his lips.

Steve gave a pleased hum and smiled against your lips. “And how did that go?” he asked.

You smiled back. “Just fine,” you replied, and leaned against his chest, closing your eyes when you felt his arms close around you. “She’s coming by for dinner on Saturday, barring any alien attacks or secret wars starting up. She’s bringing wine and bread, and Bruce is making paella.”

“Bruce too?” Steve asked curiously. “Not trying your hand at matchmaking are you?”

You chuckled. “I didn’t have to,” you told him. “I just mentioned dinner and she thought it would be nice to ask Bruce too, is all. We’ll make dessert.”

“You starting on it now?” Steve asked, and you opened your eyes to see him nod towards the kitchen counter.

“Oh, that,” you replied with a sigh. “No, that’s a cherry cheesecake I was trying to make for you. I know how you like something sweet at night and I thought it’d be nice, after a long day of meetings. The cherry topping is in the fridge, but unfortunately I overcooked the pie shell and it just crumbled to pieces.”

“Oh,” Steve said, disappointment evident in his voice.

“But I came up with a good idea of what to do with it,” you explained, and you tipped up to kiss him once more before sauntering back towards the counter. “How about we go into the living room, and I’ll bring the cheesecake filling and the cherry topping and a package or two of graham crackers. We can eat it like chips and dip, and watch Midsomer Murders. I’ve got the second series all queued up on the tv and a nice warm blanket waiting for us.”

Steve’s expression was like Christmas morning, breathing your name out with great reverence as he spoke. “Sometimes I honestly think you’re too good to be true.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Isn’t that my line?” you asked.

The evening passed with you cuddled up close beneath a fleece throw blanket printed with penguins and polar bears, jostling for control of the cheesecake and cherry bowls and posting theories over who had committed the latest homicides in Midsomer. 

“How are there any people left in the county?” Steve asked, pausing to brush some graham cracker crumbs off the edge of the blanket. “The body count here has to be off the charts and we’re only on the second season.”

“Series,” you corrected.

Steve frowned. “What’s that?” he asked?

“Second series,” you reminded. “Seasons on American television, series on British television.”

“Not at all confusing…” Steve grumbled, and scooped another graham cracker through the cheesecake filling. “Either way though… how many this episode so far?”

“Three,” you relented with a nod. “The population has taken a serious hit. I’m not sure what’s more concerning, the amount of people dead or the amount of people ready to commit murder.”

Steve snorted. “Maybe it’s something in the water?” he suggested, grinning down at where you were tucked beneath his arm. He leaned towards you and you thought for a moment that he was going to kiss you -- only to flick his tongue over a dab of cherry on your lip, leading you into a fit of giggles.

You were glad he was so relaxed; you knew that he needed to decompress on days like this. You hated to see him walking in the door with his brow furrowed and his shoulders slumped. Sometimes you wondered who he could have been in another life, without the war or the serum that changed him. You could never imagine him holed up in some office building; he’d sooner take a line job in a factory, breaking his back with an honest day’s work before he’d suffer the culture of backstabbing and bureaucracy endemic to office life even in his day. But that wouldn’t have been right for him either.

Others looked at Steve Rogers and saw a hero, but you knew him better. He might have the history and physique of a hero, but it was just a role that he played. Steve had the heart and soul of a dreamer; he always saw ways to make things somehow better, for everyone. He had it in him to change the world. That was what had led him to the Erskine and the serum -- he knew he could make a difference, if they’d only let him. You couldn’t stop yourself from wondering what more he could have done, if only he had been allowed.

 

You crept to bed after three episodes, the both of you beginning to doze and the bowls of dessert abandoned on the coffee table. You stood and stretched, throwing the blanket haphazardly over the back of the couch and turned to take the dishes, but Steve stopped you.

“We can get them in the morning,” he told you, eyes half-lidded, speech slow and sleepy.

You smiled and reached for him, unable to help yourself; you reached for his cheek and Steve leaned into the touch, sighing softly and letting his long lashes flutter closed. 

“C’mon then,” you said, letting your hand fall to twine your fingers with his. “Let’s get to bed.”

When you’d changed and slipped into bed, you smiled in the dark, feeling him moving towards you beneath the covers. You settled yourself on your side, knowing just what he needed, and in no time at all, Steve cuddled closer to burrow his head against your chest. You closed your eyes, running your fingers through his hair, and as you drifted off you heard him mutter to you sleepily, “Love you baby”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may not be the Queen of Fluff, but I'll be damned if I'm not at least a princess.


	24. Chapter 24

By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, Helen had become much more of a presence around the Tower. You saw her frequently at friendly gatherings, holding long conversations with Bruce and occasionally Tony; the cold and clinical presence she often adopted in her office was replaced with an open, even friendly manner. You were very happy for her -- and happy for Bruce too, who seemed to be very much enjoying the company. She’d even taken up Tony’s standing offer for her to join the holiday celebration.

You mentioned as much to Steve after the annual Thanksgiving meal, while you were all spending time together in the common lounge. You were sitting on Steve’s lap in an armchair, seating space at a premium, his hand on your knee.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” he warned in a low voice, earning a small laugh from you.

“Was I wrong?” you replied, nodding towards where the two stood. Bruce was fixing Helen a drink at the bar, and she was smiling at something he’d said.

“They’re having a drink,” Steve said. “That’s not exactly ringing the wedding bells.”

You turned your face towards his and smiled. “Give it time,” you replied, giggling when he gave an animated roll of his eyes. You were still laughing when he leaned forward to kiss you, laughter fading away as you gave yourself over fully to the kiss.

“Let’s keep this party G-rated, please!” Tony called, an echo of laughter from the rest of the group. You broke the kiss and leaned into Steve’s embrace, ready with a quick retort but finding no real need to use it.

“I think we could at least manage PG-13,” Pepper Potts put in smoothly, stealing a kiss from Tony himself. The group gathered, all full of liquor and good cheer, hooted and hollered in response. 

Tony kissed her back eagerly, a disappointing pout on his face for a brief moment when she pulled away to straighten the collar of his shirt, smiling all the while.

Steve drifted a warm, heavy hand up your back. You could feel the heat of him even through the soft flower-print cotton dress you had worn, and smiled when he nuzzled beneath your ear. He let his hand slide down your back again, settling there at the small of it before reaching around to squeeze your hip.

“You okay?” he asked, voice still pitched low. “I know holidays were never your thing.”

That was true, in this life and the other; your family life had been near nonexistent. Holidays were never much to shout over -- it’s not as though you had anything to really celebrate. But it was different now. You had Steve; you had Bucky, and Bruce, and your team in your lab, and you had Tony, and Darcy, and even Helen was coming around. 

You had family. You had friends. There was so much to be thankful for now.

You smiled at him. “I’m happy,” you said simply, and Steve smiled in return. Tony was getting loud and boisterous, trying to gather everyone around the coffee table. 

“If we’re not careful, he’s going to suggest we all play charades or something,” Steve half-whispered. “Maybe we should sneak out before then?”

You grinned at him. You weren’t ready for the party to end.

“Hey Tony?” you called, eyes still on Steve’s face as he started to laugh, knowing exactly what you were going to say. “How about charades?”

 

Snow came to the city in the coming weeks and with it, a series of disturbing dreams. The nightmares started without waning, interrupting your sleep to the degree that you would wake in a panic several times throughout the night. You’d find yourself drenched in sweat and your heart racing, struggling to catch your breath. Of course, Steve was concerned.

“Maybe you should make an appointment with Helen,” he suggested early one morning as you went through the motions of getting ready for the day in a listless daze. You were exhausted; you weren’t getting a full night’s rest and when you did sleep, you’d be in a constant state of fear, unable to even relax.

You pasted on a tired smile. “I’m fine,” you insisted, letting him pull you into his arms. You closed your eyes and leaned against him; you were so dead on your feet that you could fall asleep right then and there. But with sleep came the nightmares; no, you’d much rather be exhausted than deal with that any more than you had to.

At first they were standard nightmares: running in the dark, an unseen presence hovering just outside of your line of sight, sometimes even unknown terrors that would leave you to wake breathless and terrified, even though you couldn’t remember what had frightened you. It was bad but it wasn’t anything that you couldn’t handle.

Then they started to change.

They were so real. You’d dream that you were waking to another life, your old life, the one you knew before you woke up with Steve at your side. They were repetitive but never exactly the same. Usually you’d find yourself in a hospital bed in San Diego, still recovering from your bullet wound and, worst of it all, all alone. Other times you’d be in a bare room with little more than a bed, a thick metal door locking you in and bars on the only window out into the world, the bracelet on your wrist telling you that you were a patient at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital. Occasionally you’d be out in the halls of the same hospital, wandering among people who didn’t speak, only stared at you with dull, lifeless eyes.

Always there would be someone there, telling you some version of the same damn thing: you were ill, you were delusional, you needed to accept reality. 

You’d stay up all night if you could only stop the dreams.

“Baby, you’re scaring me,” Steve told you, voice thick with concern. He ran a soothing hand up and down your back. “It’s remindin’ me of when Bucky first came home and he was having so much trouble. I don’t feel comfortable leavin’ you like this.”

You were afraid of that too. Your one saving grace had been that each time you awoke in your panicked state, Steve was there to hold you and calm you. He was leaving that afternoon on a long term mission that would keep him away at least until the new year. He’d been as disappointed as you were that you’d miss Christmas together, but you’d at least have Darcy there to celebrate.

The thought of waking without him, though… that was beyond terrifying.

You tried to smile. “I’ll be fine,” you insisted. “I have my work to keep me occupied, and we can have our own Christmas when you get home.”

“But if it gets worse…” Steve insisted, brow furrowed in worry.

You nodded. “If it gets worse, I’ll make an appointment with Helen. It’s probably just a little stress, it’ll settle down.”

Steve wasn’t convinced. “You know, they probably don’t even need me,” he offered. “I could stay behind, let the rest of the team go get things set up, and they could call me in if…”

You shook your head. The two of you had spent hours talking about his role in the Avengers, and what he might want for the future -- what you both might want for your future _together_. He’d talked of going into partial retirement, taking a less active role, or leaving the team entirely when it came time for you to have a family. But you couldn’t ask that of him, not now. Not when you were still trying to heal your fractured mind and figure out what exactly had happened to break you down. Everything still seemed so unsure, so tentative.

You couldn’t ask Steve to start making major changes to his life until you understood everything that had happened to you.

“I’ll be fine,” you insisted, forcing a smile. “I’ll have Helen here, and Darcy will be here soon. It will only be a few weeks, Steve. I’ll manage. Let me hold down the fort while you go save the world.”


	25. Chapter 25

Two days after Steve and the others left, you found yourself nodding at your desk in the lab. It had been a rough night; it seemed that your nightmares had grown fiercer just by virtue of Steve’s absence during the night. You’d been holding your head up on your arm and just drifted away into a brief moment of respite from the day, jarring back awake as soon as Beth approached your desk with a file he hands.

“Oh! Beth, I’m sorry,” you said, shaking your head. You offered a tired smile. “What do you got for me?”

Her face suddenly went blank, devoid of any emotion, eyes wide and staring, but she made no response and didn’t move to hand you the file.

“Beth?” you prodded, frowning.

“You need to wake up,” she said, voice low and strained.

“What…?” you began, but she kept talking in that same strange tone.

“You need to wake up,” she repeated. “You’ve been asleep for so long.”

Your frown deepened. “Beth, I was just nodding a little, I’m not…”

“There’s no reason for you to still be asleep. You’ve locked yourself into a delusion and you _need to wake up_.”

You felt the panic welling inside of you at her words, your voice gaining an octave as you asked “What?”

But the strange expression of Beth’s face had passed; she flashed a cheerful smile. “I printed those new specs that Tony sent over. We’re fabricating the new circuitry for Bucky’s upgrades today, aren’t we?”

You nodded, your face having gone ashy and pale. “Yes, but… but what you were just saying? I… what were you just saying to me?”

Beth frowned. “Just… the specs from Tony? The ones the Wakandan princess sent him?”

“No, before that,” you told her. “Before that, when you first came over.”

Beth shook her head, clearly upset. “I just… I just came over with the paperwork, Doc, I didn’t say anything else. Are you -- are you okay? Do you need me to call Dr. Cho?”

You shook your head and forced a smile. “I’m okay,” you said a little weakly. “Just tired. Would you get me some coffee, Beth? I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Beth nodded cautiously. “I never sleep real well when I’m alone,” she offered. When the Avengers left on a mission, it was often the worst kept secret in the Tower. The people who worked in the tower, in the employ of Stark Industries, research outsourced from SHIELD, and even in hospitality, the employee cafeteria, or the coffee shop in the lobby, were all wrapped from head to toe in nondisclosure agreements and yet still liked to titter amongst themselves about what was happening on the upper floors. Beth knew Steve was gone because _everyone_ knew.

You nodded. “It takes some getting used to,” you agreed with a small laugh. It had taken some getting used to wake up beside him again, after all.

Beth smiled. “How about I get you some coffee?” she offered, setting the file folder she carried on the desk in front of you. “Look these over, and we’ll get some coffee, and go from there, okay?”

 

For the second time in recent months, you threw yourself into your work. It was difficult to focus on anything else, with the nightmares growing worse by the night and no hope for any respite in your future. You had your team focused on changing the parameters of your magnetics project, with only Beth working alongside you on the upgrades for Bucky’s arm. There was a silent but generally accepted policy that no one outside of the Avengers’ inner circle know the full breadth of their personal tech; Beth would work with you on the circuitry, and you’d pull Jared to finish the project later on.

There had been two more strange episodes during your working hours; Beth seemed more and more uneasy with you as timed passed, but she wouldn’t broach the topic. You knew what she was thinking -- that you were unraveling. You were having the very same fears.

“Maybe we can hold off on the circuitry?” she suggested. 

You frowned at her, taking a sip of your coffee. “Why would we do that?” you asked.

“You just seems… so… tired?” she offered, clearly trying not to offend you. “It’s such intricate work, and you’ve been…”

“Completely off my game,” you filled in with a sigh, leaning back in your chair. Beth was right; you shouldn’t be handling something so delicate when you were exhausted and afraid to sleep. You sighed again. “Why don’t you see if Jared needs a hand? Tony left some clean energy air filters he wanted us to look at to try and get the HVAC system a little greener, he and a few others are working on it.”

“Sure, okay,” Beth agreed, nodding. She reached out a hand and patted your shoulder gently. “Maybe you could take a break? Try and get some sleep.”

You smiled and took a long sip of your coffee. “I’ll keep myself busy,” you said.

 

In spite of the near epic amounts of coffee you’d been drinking, you were still more than ready for a good long nap. You tried to keep your mind active by reading over the field notes Dr. Foster had sent along with Darcy on her last visit, but the words would blurr and swim in your exhausted vision. You nearly spilled your coffee twice and after you were jolted awake by your head hitting the keyboard, you threw in the towel. You let your team know you’d be taking the rest of the day off and you half-walked, half-stumbled towards the elevator that would take you home.

The sheets still smelled like Steve and you smiled as you crawled in, still in your lab coat, having only bothered to kick off your shoes at the door to your bedroom. You were no good to anyone if you couldn’t function properly, and caffeine could only do so much. You curled yourself around Steve’s pillow and sighed, wishing he was there for you to hold, and closed your eyes, bracing yourself for what dreams may come.

The first was just a normal nightmare, so simple and familiar that it almost felt like a relief when you woke from it at the nagging for your bladder, an hour or so after you’d fallen asleep. When you emerged from the bathroom you paused to change out of your work clothes, feeling foolish at having collapsed into bed without so much as stripping off our coat. You pulled a fresh nightgown from your drawer and quickly shed your clothes, grateful for the cool clean cotton and happy to take yourself back to bed if your dreams would simply be a visit from some celluloid horror from a slasher flick. You could take that -- you’d take it in spades if it was as bad as it would get. 

When your head hit the pillow again, it felt as though you fell straight through. It was like sinking into deep, dark water; you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t open your mouth to scream, until you suddenly fell and hit the ground. You tried to stand but stumbled, bare feet on hard cotton padded floors, the same thick material all over the walls and ceiling, and on the back of the only door into the room. There was a single window in the door, thick panes of glass with small chain-link fencing sealed inside, and you scrambled up towards it, pausing to stare at your hands as you did; your fingernails were bitten down, your cuticles ragged and bloody.

You peeked out the door and saw Beth standing nearby, an open folder in her hand. You thought it must be the circuitry plans from Shuri, and you tapped on the glass to get her attention.

“Beth?” you called, hoping she could hear you.

She looked up and smiled. “Oh, you’re awake!” she said, stepping towards the other side of the door. Her voice was muffled and you frowned to see that she was wearing scrubs. That didn’t make sense at all.

“Yes, why am I in here?” you called, glaring up at the single domed light in the ceiling of the room that kept flickering on and off. 

“You got a little upset in the day room, Doc,” she explained sadly. “I’m afraid we had to sedate you. Are you feeling better? Do you want something to eat?”

“What? Beth, you’re not making sense!” you said, rapping on the window with your knuckles. “Let me out of here! I need to get back to work!”

Beth’s face went sad. “Oh, Doc, you were doing so well, what happened?” she asked, and when you made no response, she sighed. She told you your name and you nodded, bristling a little that she left of your married name. “You had a bad reaction to some anesthesia after surgery. You were hit by a car, do you remember? We’ve been working with you for months and you seemed to be letting go of the delusion, but you had a relapse, and…”

“What? Stop it, Beth, that’s not funny!” you shouted, pounding on the door. “Stop it and let me out! I need to get back to work, I need to find an answer before Seve gets home. What’s going on? Are you working for someone? HYDRA? AIM?”

Beth sighed. “Just try to calm down,” she said, hand on the glass for just a moment. “If they hear you shouting, they’ll want to sedate you again. Try and relax, okay? We’ll find a way to get you back, I promise.”

“No!” you said, backing away from the door and shaking your head. “No, no, this isn’t… this can’t be… I want to go home, I need to go home! No, no…!”

 

“Baby, wake up! C’mon Doc, wake up, I’m right here!” Steve said, trying to keep you from thrashing so hard against the sheets.

You woke with a sudden scream, sitting upright in bed and glancing around the room wildly. It was dark out, your discarded clothes on the floor where you had left them, and Steve was sitting on the bed beside you, brows knit together in concern.

“Doc?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

You threw your arms around him, squeezing him tight. Your searching fingers ran over the fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscle beneath, before pulling back to touch his face and run your fingers through his hair.

“You’re here?” you asked, voice hoarse, tears streaming down your face.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here,” Steve said. He took one of your hands in his, threading your fingers together and gently squeezing. “I’m right here, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

“You’re real?” you asked, voice breaking. You were starting to shake and Steve pulled you close, holding you as tight as he could without hurting you.

“I’m real, Doc. I swear it to you,” he breathed, blinking back his own tears. “I swear to god, Doc.”


	26. Chapter 26

For the longest time, you just sobbed in his arms. Steve held you close, rubbing your back and whispering reassurances in your ear, letting you get it all out. The reality of him, in that moment, seemed unquestionable: you could feel the weight of his arms around you and the softness of the grey t-shirt and workout pants he wore, the mingled scents of detergent and sweat filling your senses. Each one of your senses reported back to you that this was all unequivocally real, that Steve was actually there, that you had your face pressed into his chest and those were his fingers running through your hair, but your mind kept questioning it.

When you were able to calm yourself, you pulled back just far enough to look up at him with eyes swollen from weeping.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you said slowly, still sniffling.

Steve gave you a small smile. “Couldn’t stay away,” he replied.

You shook your head and pulled a little further out of his embrace. “You’re supposed to be away, with the team. Working. And then you show up here just when I need you most. It’s too… it’s too _perfect_. Even… scripted. Like I had written it myself.”

Steve frowned, the deep concern in his eyes too much for you; you had to look away.

“I didn’t want to leave you, Doc,” he spoke quietly. He let his hand drift down your arm and then settle heavily on top of yours where it rest on the blankets. “Not when you were havin’ all this trouble sleeping. I flew into Minsk with the team, I did my part, and I checked out early. They can handle it without me.”

“It’s more important for you to…” you began.

“No,” Steve interrupted, shaking his head. “I needed to be _here_. You’re the most important thing to me, Doc. You know that. You have to know that by now, sweetheart.”

You sniffled, and shook your head. “No,” you told him. “You’re Captain America. You’re supposed to be the one fighting the good fight, for everyone who can’t do it themselves. That’s the way it’s supposed to go.”

He shook his head again, reaching up with gentle fingers to turn you to face him. “No,” he repeated. “I’m Steve Rogers. The only place I’m supposed to be is right next to you when you need me. I promised you that when we got married -- you’d never be second place. I knew you needed me so I came home to you, where I belong.”

The passive expression you had been trying to hold finally broke and your face crumpled with a torrent of tears. You threw yourself back into his embrace; you wanted so badly for all of this to be real. That was the worst of it, really: it wasn’t you sanity you were concerned about at all. You’d gladly lose yourself to a false reality if it meant you’d never have to give this up.

 

Eventually Steve convinced you to get checked out in medical, and he insisted on carrying you the entire way. You kept telling him he was being silly and going overboard -- you could walk, after all -- but there was simply no dissuading him. A little past eight in the evening, you were met by Helen in the foyer.

You got the distinct impression that she had been waiting for you to arrive.

“Let’s go into the first exam room,” Helen said by way of greeting, and Steve followed her direction without comment, not letting you go until he had rested you on the thin gurney mattress.

She ran through all of the basics, checking your vitals, listening to your heart and lungs, even going so far as to check your oxygen saturation levels.

“You’re dehydrated,” she declared, pulling an IV kit from a drawer. “And your temperature is up, most likely the result of stress. Your blood pressure if evened out, though, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

You frowned. “Dehydrated?” you echoed. 

Helen glanced at Steve then back to you before speaking. “I’ve heard you’ve had some trouble sleeping, is that right?” she asked quietly, distracting you long enough to get your IV in place without you even noticing. “Lots of coffee? It’s a diuretic. If it’s all you’re drinking, it can cause some dehydration… which won’t help with your sleep patterns.”

You frowned, turning towards Steve. “Somebody been tattling on me?” you asked.

“Somebody’s been worried about you,” he replied softly. “Somebody can’t stand to see you hurting.”

Any anger you might have held for him slipped quietly away with his words and you closed your eyes, leaning back onto your pillow. Steve stroked your hair and Helen busied herself setting up a saline drip to rehydrate you. It was the sort of task that she would normally send someone from the nursing staff in to do, but you had the feeling she was tending to it herself to help preserve your privacy, and for that much you were grateful.

“Once you have some fluids, I think we should do a full blood panel,” Helen spoke up.

You opened your eyes and shook your head. “No,” you said. “No more tests.”

Helen frowned. “As your physician, I think it would be best to…”

“No,” you repeated. “I’m done with tests. You want my blood, get some from Tony and Bruce. I’ve run the gamut with them already and they have blood and skin cells and hair and god knows what else in the freezer. I’m done.”

“Baby, please,” Steve said quietly. “We need to get this figured out.”

You gave him a tired smile. “I’m done trying to figure things out,” you said, and heaved a sigh. “I’m so tired, Steve. I need to stop trying to decide what _is_ and what _isn’t_ , and just _be_ for awhile.”

“Let me at least give you a sedative,” Helen suggested. “You need a good night’s sleep.”

You shrugged. “Do sedatives prevent nightmares?” you asked her.

“Prazosin will,” Helen told you. “There have been good results with it for night terrors. That, and a muscle relaxer, and you should knock right out.”

“Can I take it at home?” you asked. “I want to sleep in my own bed.”

“I’d like to do it intravenously,” Helen said, glancing at your half-full saline drip. “You’ll feel it more quickly that way, and I can better gauge the dosage.”

“I’ll bring you home after you fall asleep,” Steve suggested, reaching out to squeeze your hand.

You hesitated, then relented. “I guess,” you said, not without reservation. But you were so very tired, and you didn’t think you could handle another nightmare.

Helen readied the injections and it seemed only minutes after they were administered, you started to become drowsy. You reached out with a waver hand towards Steve and he took it in his own, squeezing it gently once again and carding his fingers through your hair as you drifted off.

You woke to early morning light with a start; for a brief moment, you were terrified to open your eyes. But then you felt Steve shift next to you and the tangle of his legs with yours, and when you opened your eyes he was right there beside you, face creased from the pillow and his lips slightly parted. You smiled and snuggled closer, losing yourself to the warmth of his body and falling back into a deep, dreamless sleep.


	27. Chapter 27

You coped as best as you could. You’d spend a few days forcing yourself to stay awake, living off coffee and little else, until you couldn’t stand it any longer and you’d finally pass out. The nightmares would always be terrible, the same fears repeating over and over again in your mind as you slept -- if they were truly nightmares at all. When you’d wake, you’d make do until you could see Helen and beg another shot of the drug cocktail that would send you into a few hours of a dreamless respite.

It wasn’t really living; it was just surviving.

The holidays passed in a blur. Darcy came back, as promised, and the others returned from whatever their mission was overseas, but you were sleepwalking through your days and couldn’t gather up any real excitement for the celebrations. You tried -- you really did -- but each day was haunted by the specter of what might come if you dared close your eyes.

You knew you didn’t look well. You’d lost weight and your clothes seemed to hang on your frame. Steve was worried; you’d heard him whispering with Darcy and Bucky, asking what he could do and how he could help you, but no one seemed able to offer any ideas. You understood that much; you were at your wit’s end yourself. 

Creeping out of bed in the middle of the night had become your routine. You’d try and slip back in before Steve woke, but often times you’d give up completely and just start making breakfast and coffee. Eventually, Steve spoke up.

“Hey,” he called quietly into the dimly lit room. You’d switched off the bedside lamp better than an hour ago, but the blinds were still open to the lights of the city thriving below. “Where’re you going?”

“Can’t sleep,” you lied, offering a tired smile. “I’m just going to read or something in the living room, don’t worry about me.”

Steve sighed and called your name to stop you. “Baby,” he said. “Please, come back to bed. You gotta try and get some sleep.”

You shook your head, tears shining in your eyes. “I’m afraid,” you told him, your voice cracking on the words. You didn’t want to show Steve any fear; he had so much to worry him already. He had gone through so much in the last few months, and you had been the one to do that to him -- _you_. You’d hurt him so deeply, rejected him to try and insulate your own heart, keep yourself safe, unwilling to think of what you were doing to him.

Then you came home. Had a few weeks of happiness. And the bottom fell out on you again.

“They’re just dreams, baby,” Steve said, pulling the blanket back on your side of the bed. “They can’t hurt you. I know it’s been hard, but we’ll find some way to make them go away, I promise. But you’re running yourself into the ground. You can’t keep this up much longer.”

The gentleness to his tone, the softness and the sadness in his eyes… it was all too much for you to resist. You sunk back down on the mattress and watched, tears slipping down your cheeks, as he pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside before reaching out a hand to you. You cuddled in close and he pulled you tight against his chest, your head resting right where you could listen to his heartbeat, a turnabout of the way you would hold him on his worst days. 

“Is this real?” he asked you, the sound of his voice reaching your ear as the vibrations of his speech rumbled against your cheek. “Am I here?”

You closed your eyes. You could feel the smoothness of his body against yours, the roughness of his calloused hands, pushed up beneath your nightshirt so you were skin to skin at every point he could manage. You breathed in the scent of his aftershave, cool and only faintly spiced, and the barest hint of sweat beneath it. You could hear the steady beat of his heart, thumping just beneath your cheek, a perfect unchecked rhythm that you had unconsciously matched with your breathing. 

“Yes,” you said, your own small hands reaching around to hold onto him for dear life. “Yes, you’re here. I know you’re here, you’re real. I know it.”

Steve dropped his chin and kissed you on the crown of your head. “Nightmares, though. Those aren’t real, are they?”

“I… I want to believe they’re not,” you said, shivering at the thought. “I want to believe that, Steve, I want my life to be here with you, but I’m afraid, I’m so afraid that I’m going to go to sleep and never wake up again, never get out of the nightmare and never… never…”

Your voice had gone more and more frantic as you spoke, the words tumbling out over your lips without stopping, the fear creeping back in, but Steve just tightened his arms around you and made quiet soothing sounds, trying to calm you.

“That’s not going to happen,” he told you resolutely and you tried so hard to believe. “No matter what you see when you close your eyes, no matter what kind of awful things your dream about… I’m gonna be right here, baby. I’m always gonna be right here. No matter how scared you might feel, you gotta remember that this is real. That I’m right here for you, and I always will be.”

You started crying in earnest, hot tears spilling down Steve’s chest where you pressed your face, your shoulders shaking. He let you cry but held you close, stroking your back and whispering to you that he was never going to let you go. Exhausted and overwrought, you eventually passed into a fitful sleep. The dreams came -- there would be no stopping that, you were certain of it -- but when you’d begin to toss and turn, Steve would hold you tight; even in the deepest recesses of your nightmares, you could feel him there, the scent of him still surrounding you, and you knew you were safe.

When you awoke the next morning, you were a little stiff but you felt rested for the first time in ages. True to his word, Steve had held you all night long, never letting you out of his arms and calming you whenever you seemed to fret. It was only when you sat up and sighed, rolling your shoulders to work out a few kinks, when you noticed that Steve was watching you with a sweet smile on his face, looking a little worse for wear.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“The nightmares weren’t so bad,” you confirmed, watching as he rolled his neck and yawned. Your eyes widened as you realized what had happened -- Steve had stayed awake all night to watch over you and soothe you when you became frightened in your sleep.

“You didn’t sleep at all, did you?” you asked him, sorrow and guilt creeping into your voice as you spoke. You’d put him through so much, and now he was losing sleep. 

“I was exactly where I needed to be,” Steve told you, smiling even though he was clearly tired. “And I always will be.”


	28. Chapter 28

Steve kept staying up late into the night, watching over you as you slept. You loved hm for it -- that he would rather be tired and rundown than let you suffer -- but you couldn’t let him continue to put himself on the line for you. You made a few concessions to try and push him into getting some rest, chiefly that you would cut your hours down to the absolute minimal in your lab. It seemed to Steve -- and you, if you were being honest -- that the more work you put in, the worse your nightmares became.

It was a double-edged sword. Your anxiety over the actual fabric of your reality seemed as though it could only be eased by your work, by powering through and trying to find a logical explanation for what had happened to you. At the same time, it seemed the more you worked, the worse your nightmares and hallucinations became. There was no reasonable alternative; all you could do was try and cope.

First and foremost, you needed Steve to get some decent sleep. Thankfully, you had a few tricks up your sleeve in that respect. There was dinner, of course; if you cooked enough, put out enough of a spread, and added a few desserts in for good measure, you could put Steve into a genuine food coma for a few hours. He’d be snoozing on the couch before you so much as turned off the kitchen light. It couldn’t be an everyday thing -- Steve would catch on pretty quickly and in all honesty, your recipe repertoire was exhausted by the third or fourth massive dinner you had prepared. 

You did have a more favored trick of knocking him out for at least a few hours. Steve had taken an indefinite leave of absence from the team, much to your chagrin; you hated that you were interrupting his day to day life with your madness. With you spending more time away from your lab, you were in each other’s pockets for much of the day, and Steve… didn’t seem to mind. You remembered the talk you had when you realized that you had been trying to start a family before the accident; Steve had been set on semi-retirement.

You realized it was probably something he had _wanted_. He had been fighting for so long; he deserved time to rest and enjoy the life he had now. 

So you ran the city with him: parks, museums, plays, anything you could come up with. And when you got him, and after you had fed him something rich and full of carbs, you would pounce.

There wasn’t too much you were certain of these days but you knew without a doubt that Steve would never, ever refuse you. A warm hand sliding up his back beneath his t-shirt, soft breath on his ear, a well-aimed nip to his shoulder, and he was putty in your hands. Not that it was some great hardship for you. Truth was, some nights you knocked out after a well timed romp in the sheets before Steve ever did, and slept straight through to the morning.

You’d pounced him that evening after supper. You hadn’t even had an ulterior motive; he had smiled at you over the pancakes you had made, blue eyes so full of light and happiness, you couldn’t help yourself. As soon as the table was cleared, you were backing him towards your bedroom with your hands making quick work of the buttons on his shirt.

Steve chuckled. “Usually you wait at least an hour or two after we eat,” he said, before kissing you back eagerly. 

“Don’t know what it is lately,” you replied, laughing in return. “Can’t seem to keep my hands off of you.”

Steve grinned. “Not like you’ll hear me complaining!”

 

A few hours later saw Steve sleeping deeply enough that you felt comfortable sneaking out of bed again. You were a little dozy yourself, still trying to keep from sleeping too deeply and inviting any more nightmares out to play, so you took a quick shower to clear your head and slipped into your favorite soft violet bathrobe before retreating to the living room.

You didn’t really have an office in the apartment anymore; Stevehad’t wanted anything big or ostentatious when he took up residence in the Tower and had taken a simple two-bedroom, a master with a guest room that became your office when you moved in. Before the accident -- it was so much easier to think of the day you were shot as an _accident_ than as an incident or assault -- you had already cleared all of your work materials from the room, leaving only an empty desk and a bookshelf. You’d remembered that the day you found the little calendar in your bedside table, how you had optimistically begun preparing the room for a new lodger.

It seemed centuries ago now.

You settled yourself on the couch with a cup of coffee and yawned. Your laptop was on the coffee table but your eyes were tried and you decided to go for a larger display, asking Friday to pull up the three dimensional model of pieced together bullet fragments you had created in the lab, onto the large flatscreen inset in the living room wall.

The AI was a little snippy with you, but it had been that way for a while. You were certain it hadn’t forgiven you for cursing at it when Steve had been hurt in the fire all those months ago.

Leave it to Tony Stark to create artificial intelligence that could hold a grudge.

You closed your eyes and sighed; you really, really wanted to be back in bed, curled up against Steve, letting the slow rise and fall of his chest lull you to sleep, but you knew better than to think there was any safety for you in your dreams. Better you be here, working; Steve wanted you to limit your time in the lab and you’d give him that, but you couldn’t stop trying to find at least an answer to the mystery that had been plaguing all of you for months.

When you opened your eyes, you frowned at what you saw.

“Friday, I wanted my bullet specs,” you said in a tone of gentle admonishment. “Not the wormhole project.”

You were fairly certain the AI sighed in annoyance before speaking. “These _are_ the diagrams you requested.”

Your frown deepened. You could see the basic structure of your miniature wormhole mechanism clear before you: the magnets, the core spring, the tiny revolving mechanism. You were about to repeat your request to the AI when you saw the side-cut view of the bullet casing still in view.

You couldn’t help the gasp that escaped you. You didn’t have the answer, but you’d found a major piece of the puzzle, and it had been staring you right in the face all along.

“Friday! Call Darcy!” you said, sitting up a little straighter.

“Are you aware of the time?” the AI responded dryly.

“Yes, yes, please, just call Darcy!” you insisted; you were pretty sure it was the ‘please’ that did it. A moment later, Darcy’s sleepy voice came over the speakers in the living room.

“Whatya waaaaaaaaaaant?” she groaned.

“Darcy, where’s Jane Foster?” you asked.

Darcy sniffled. “Jane? The hell are you talking about? She’s… somewhere…”

“How soon can she get _here_?” you asked, and the urgency in your voice seemed to wake Darcy up a bit more.

“Um… she’s not overseas and not off-worlding, so it’ll depend on flight schedules, so probably by tomorrow if it’s really important,” Darcy told you.

“It’s really important!” you replied. “Can you get in touch with her, please? I need her expertise.”

“Will do, mon capitan! … er, mon capitan’s wifey!” Darcy replied, fully awake now and ready to get to work. You loved that about her; you didn’t need to explain or convince her. If you told her it was important, that was all that she needed.

Once Darcy hung up, you stood and stretched. You might try for some sleep after all.

“Friday,” you called, “Can you please take a message for Dr. Cho? I’ll need all hands on deck for this and I could use her help.”

“Dr. Cho is still in the building,” Friday informed you. “Shall I contact her in Dr. Banner’s quarters, or would you prefer to just leave a message?”

Huh. Well _that_ was interesting.

“Don’t interrupt them,” you advised. “Just leave a message, please.”

 

You grabbed your coffee mug off of the coffee table and turned to drop it in the kitchen sink, surprised to see Steve standing in your bedroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned on the doorframe wearing only the boxer briefs you’d helped him discard on the bedroom floor hours before.

“Working late, Doc?” he drawled, arching an eyebrow. 

You bit your lip, clearly caught in the act. “Uh…couldn’t sleep?” you offered, dropping your mug back down on the coffee table. You’d gotten so excited with what you had discovered that you hadn’t lowered your voice when speaking to Friday or Darcy, and had woken him up.

“Is this what you’ve been up to lately?” Steve asked you, feigning offense. “Just lovin’ on me to put me out of commission, so you can go back to work?”

You padded over to him with a smile, throwing your arms around his neck so you could reach up to kiss him. He didn’t uncross his arms, maintaining his defensive position, but he dipped his head to meet your kiss. Clearly, he wasn’t all that upset.

You reached one hand to slip the sash on your robe, pressing your bare body against his and feeling his immediate physical reaction. You couldn’t help but smile against Steve’s lips; like his metabolism, Steve’s enhanced libido was something you could always count on.

Steve groaned. “How do I know know you’re not just tryin’ to get me off your back?”

You snickered. “More like I’m trying to get you _on_ your back,” you said, and he laughed.

“That so, babydoll?” Steve asked, voice dropped a few octaves and his arms dropping to circle your waist beneath your robe. “Sure you don’t wanna go back and fiddle with your diagrams some more? Get some work done?”

“Work is for tomorrow,” you told him, reaching up to steal another kiss. “Right now, the only plans I have are getting you back in our bed and spending the rest of the night riding you like I stole ya.”

Steve chuckled, long and deep. “Well, giddy up, darlin’.”


End file.
